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T 


LIFE 


OF 

J. G. BLAINE 


>io”i^n.w'^Lovelvco^;S 


for t 


bookseller or newsdealer, price If 


|U< 


CHARLES W. BALESTIER 


“A FAIR DEVICE,” ”A POTENT 


Author of 


PHILTER, <^c., 


tier 


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LOVELL’S LIBRARY-CATALOGUE. 


1. Hyperion.. 

2. Ontre-Mer.. 

3. Ti; e Happy Boy.10 

4- A.iie. 10 

5. Frankenstein.10 

6. TheLast of theMohicans.20 

7 - Clyde.20 

8. The Moonstone, Part 1.10 

9. The Moonstone, Part II. 10 

10. Oliver Twist.20 

11. The Coming Race.10 

12. Leila.. 

13. The Three Spaniards.. .20 

14. The Tricks of the Greeks.20 

15. L’Abbe Constantin.20 

16. Freckles.20 

17. The Dark Colleen.20 

18. They were Married_10 

19. Seekers After God.20 

20. The Spanish Nun.10 

21. Green Mountain Boys..20 

22. Fleurette.20 

23. Second Thoughts.20 

24. The New Magdalen .... 20 

25. Divorce.20 

26. Life of Washington.20 

27. Social Etiquette.15 

28. Single Heart, Double 

Face.. 

29. Irene; or. The Lonely 

Manor.20 

30. Vice Versa.20 

31. Ernest Maltravers.20 

32. The Haunted House... 10 

33. John Halifax.20 

34. 800 Leagues on the 

Amazon.. 

35. The Cryptogram.. 

36. Life of Marion.20 

37 * Paul and Virginia.. 

38. A Tale of Two Cities.... 20 

39. The Hermits.20 

40. An Adventure in Thule, 

etc.. 

41. A Marriage in High Life2o 

42. Robin.. 

43. Two on a Tower.20 

44 * Rasselas........10 

45. Alice; a sequel to Er¬ 

nest Maltravers.20 

46. Duke of Kandos.20 

47 * Baron Munchausen.10 

48. A Princess of Thule ... .20 

49. The Secret Despatch... .20 

50. Early Days of Christian¬ 
ity, 2 Parts, each.20 

51. Vicar of Wakefield.. 

52. Progress and Poverty.. .20 

53. The Spy.. 

54. East Lynne.20 

55. A Strange Story.20 

56. Adam Bede, Part 1.15 

Adam Bede, Part 1 1.... i s 

57. The Golden Shaft.20 

58. Portia.. 

59. Last Days of Pompeii... 20 

60. The Two Duchesses_20 

61. TomBrown’sSchoolDavs.2o 

62. Wooing O’t, 2 Pts. each.!? 

63. The Vendetta.20 

64. Hypatia, Part 1.15 

Hypatia, Part II... ...15 


65. Selma.. 

66. Margaret and her Brides- " 

maids.20 

67. Horse Shoe Robinson, 

2 Parts, each.15 

68. Gulliver’s Travels.20 

69. Amos Barton.. 

70. The Berber.20 

71. Silas Marner...10 

72. Queen of the County . ..20 

73. Life of Cromwell.15 

74. Jane E3Te.. 

75. Child’sHist’ry of Engl’d. 20 

7A Molly Bawn.20 

77. Pillone.15 

78. Phyllis. .20 

79. Romola, Part 1 .15 

K Romola, Part II.15 

80. Science in ShortChapters.2o 

81. Zanoni.20 

82. A Daughter of Heth... .20 

83. Right and Wrong Uses of 

the Bible.20 

84. Night and Morning,Pt. 1.15 
NightandMorning,Pt.II 15 

85. Shandon Bells.20 

S6. Monica.. 

87. Heart and Science.20 

88. The Golden Calf.20 

89. The Dean’s Daughter... 20 

90. Mrs. Geoffrey.20 

91. Pickwick Papers, Part 1.20 
Pickwick Papers,Part II.20 

92. Airy, Fairy Lilian.20 

93. Macleod of Dare.20 

94. Tempest Tossed, Part I. ao 
Tempest Tossed^ P’t 11.20 

95. Letters from High Lat¬ 

itudes.20 

96. Gideon Fleyce.20 

97. India and Ceylon.20 

98. The Gypsy Queen.20 

99. The Admiral’s Ward • • • « 20 

100. Nimport, 2 Parts, each.. 15 

101. Harry Holbrooke. .20 

102. Tritons, 2 Parts, each ..15 

103. Let Nothing You Dismay. 10 

104. LadyAudley’s Secret...20 

105. Woman’s Place To-day.20 

106. Dunallan, 2 parts, each. 15 

107. Housekeeping and Home 

making.15 

108. NoNewThing.20 

109. TheSpoopendykePapers.2o 

no. False Hopes.15 

111. Labor and Capital.20 

112. Wanda, 2 parts, each ... 15 

113. More Words about Bible. 20 

114. Monsieur Lecocq, P’t. 1 .20 
Monsieur Lecocq, Pt. 11.20 

115. An Outline of Irish Hist. 10 

116. The Lerouge Case.20 

117. Paul Clifford.20 

118. A New Lease of Life.. .20 

119. Bourbon Lilies.20 

120. Other People’s Money..20 

121. Lady of Lyons.. 

122. Ameline de Bourg.15 

123. A Sea Queen....20 

124. The Ladies Lindores.. .20 

125. Haunted Hearts.10 

126. Loys, Lord Beresford>.i20 


■2'’, Under Two Flags, Pt I. ao 
Under Two Flags, Pt Il.ao ; 
12Z. Money.. 1 

129. In Peril of His Life.20 > 

130. India; What can it teach 

us?.20 

131. Jets and Flashes....20 

132. Moonshine and Margue¬ 
rites. io\ 

133. Mr. Scarborough’s 

Family, 2 Parts, each .. 15 ^ 

134. Arden.15 

135. Tower of Percemont_20 

136. Yolande.. 

137. Cruel London.. B 

138. The Gilded Clique.20 

139. Pike County Folks.20 

140. Cricket on the Hearth.. 10(j 

141. Henry Esmond.20 ! 

142. Strange Adventures of a ! 

Phaeton. 

143. Denis Dm^al.... 

144. OldCuriositySh' 

OldCuriositySlv .1.15 

145. Ivanhoe, Part . .15 

Ivanhoe, Part II.15 

146. White VVings.20 

147. The Sketch Book.20 

148. Catherine.. 

149. Janet’s Repentance.. ..lo 

150. Bamaby Rudge, Tart I.. 15 , 
Barnaby Rudge, Part 11 .15 * 

151. Felix Holt.20 

152. Richelieu.. 

153. Sunrise, Part 1 .15 

153. Sunrise, Part II.15 

154. Tour of the World in 80 , 

D^ys.. 

155. Mystery of Orcival.20 . 

156. Lovel, the Widower.... 10 

157. Romantic Adventures of 

a Milkmaid.. 

158. DavidCopperfield.Part 1.20 
David Copperfield,P’rt 11.20 

159. Charlotte Temple. ..10 

160. Rienzi, 2 Parts, each ...15 ; 

161. Promise of Marriage.... 10 

162. Faith and Unfaith_..20 

163. The Happy Man.. 

164. BaiTy Lyndon.20 t 

165. Eyre’s Acquittal.lo j 

166. 20,000 Leagues Under the ' 

Sea^.20 

167. Anti-Slavery Days.20 

168. Beauty’s Daughters.20 

169. Beyond the Sunrise.20 ni 

170. Hard Times.20 ** 

171. Toni Cringle’s Log .... 20 

172. Vanity Fair.30 

173* Underground Fvussia-20 0 

174. M iddlemarch, 2 Pts. each. 20 

175. Sir Tom.. 

176. Pelham.. 

177. The Story of Ida. ... 10 

178. Madcap Viclet,.20 

179. The Little Pilgrim.10 

180. Kilmeny.20 

181. Whist, or Bumblepuppy ?, ic I 

182. That Beautiful Wretch.. 20 

183. Her Mother’s Sin.20 

184. Green Pastures, etc.20 

185. Mysterious Island, Pt I.15 






















































































































































































James G. Blaine 


H Shetcb of bis Xite 


WITH A BRIEF RECORD OF THE LIFE OF 


JOHN A. LOGAN 


BY 

CHARLES WOLCOTT BALESTIER 

Author of''A Fair Device^"' Potent Philter^' etc. 



NEW YORK 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 

14 AND 16 Vesey Street 




TROW’S 

FRINTINQ AND BOOKBINDING COMPANr, 
NEW YORK. 





an excuse 


There are various excuses for a preface— 
for it seems always necessary; but perhaps that 
which regards it as an opportunity for thanking those 
who have assisted to give the writer something to 
preface is among the most reasonable. I, at least, 
am forced to think so, remembering how much I am 
indebted for this little volume to others, and how lit¬ 
tle I could say for the volume itself if, adopting one 
of the other ideas of a preface, I should try to justify 
and absolve the book to my readers. If I began at 

the head of my list of obligations I should thank the 

« 

newspa'pers, and as my professions will scarcely reach 
their ears, let us sav that I thank their editors—the* 
editors of twenty years ago chiefly. The editors of 
yesterday and day before have also claims upon my. 
gratitude, and I can only hope they will not feel that 
they have too many should they glance through this 
sketch. The author also feels a secret sense of obli- 



iV 


FREFA CE, 


gation to the compilers of the indices to the Cofigres^ 
sioiial Record, the New York Trilnuie, and Times, and 
it is so unusual to thank an indexer that he is almost 
inclined to thank them. But there need be nothing 
dubious about his thanks to Professor Alexander 
Gow, of Fontanelle, Iowa, one of Mr. Blaine’s class¬ 
mates, who has given much information and has per¬ 
mitted the use of one of Mr. Blaine’s letters ; to Mr. 
William C. Chapin, Principal of the Pennsylvania 
Institution for the Instruction of the Blind ; to the 
President of Washington and Jefferson College; to 
Mr. John D. Adams and Mr. Richard E. Day, of 
Syracuse, N. Y. ; to Mr. George Buck, Mr. White- 
law Reid ; Mr. Charles A. Little, of Hagerstown, Md.; 
Mr. D. Nicholson, of New York, and Hon. William 
W. Phelps. 

I do not know in what degree the subject of this 
sketch approves of it: the proofs, however, have 
passed through his hands. But it is certain that, as 
Mr. Howells has said in the preface to his admirable 
“ Life of Hayes,” “ whatever “is ambitious or artificial 
or unwise in my book is doubly my misfortune, for it 
is altogether false to him.” 

If I had not begun with certain declarations I 
•should like, in conclusion, to try to palliate the pages 
before which this stands. I should like to say that 
the material for this volume was gathered, and the 
work essentially written, in the early morning hours 


PRf^FA CE. 


V 


of a fortnight, and that I am sensible that it must bear 
marks of its extemporaneous creation, and to add that 
this little essay, being the first attempt at a life of its 
subject, the writer’s voyage has been the doubtful 
and perilous voyage of discovery. All this it would 
give me pleasure to say ; but as I am committed to a 
view of the preface opposed to the expression of these 
things, I must instead ask my critics — the class which 
at last makes the only efifectual excuses for the 
writers of books or prefaces — to make these excuses 
for me. 

C. W. BALESTIER. 

The Astor Library, New York, 

21 June, 1884. 




o 


CONTENTS. 


r ■ . • - ■_ 

I<| I.—Boyhood,. 

II.—At College, . . ^ 

III. —Experiments,. 

IV. —Editor and State Politic.^l Leader, 

V.—In Congress. 

VI.—Speaker of the House .and Senator, 

VII.—The Currency, .. 

VIIL—The Tariff, . 

IX.—American Shipping,. 

X.—Civil Service Reform, .... 

XL—The Amnesty Bill,. 

XII.—American Citizenship. 

XIII.—The Chinese (Question, , . . . 

, XIV.—Slander,. 

XV.—Before the Conventions of 1876 and 1880, 

XVI.—Secretary of State,. 

XVII.—At Garfield’s Bedside, .... 


PACK 

I 

10 

18 

26 

31 

50 

71 

76 

93 
10 1 

106 
112 
116 

125 

166 

187 







vin 


COjVTE.VTS. 


XVIII. —“Twenty Years of Congress,’' .... 198 

XIX. —The Nomination,. 205 

XX. —Reception of the Nomination, .... 220 
XXL —The Man,. 236 


A Brief Record of John A. Logan,. 245 

APPENDIX A. 

The Platform of the Republican Party— 1884, . . . 263 

APPENDIX B. 

Speech of Mr. Blaine in the House on National Finance, 

February 10, 1876, . . ..270 

APPENDIX C. 

Hon. William Walter Phelps on the Charges against 
Mr. Blaine,. 283 







JAMES G. BLAINE, 

A Sketch of his Life, 


I. 

BOYHOOD. 

An event which occurred in the scanty village of 
West Brownsville, Pennsylvania, on the thirty-first day 
of January, 1830, has multiplied its importance in fifty- 
four years. It will be said that it has been given time ; 
but it was an event of a sort whose contemporaneous 
importance—always very large—is at least as likely to 
dwindle as to grow. The concern in it has also wid¬ 
ened, for at the time of its occurrence it touched but 
two nearl}’’, and was notable only within the limits of a 
family ; and it has now an interest whose boundaries 
are those of a country. The event was the birth of a 
second son to Mr. and Mrs. Ephraim Lyon Blaine. It 
has not a large sound in this newspaper phrase, but 



2 


JAMES G. BE A EVE. 


the son was James Gillespie Blaine, and that name has 
certainly come to have a meaning. 

His ancestors had dwelt for many years in the fertile 
region where he was born ; they were among the hardy 
band of pioneers which settled the rich valley of the 
Cumberland, and their name and history are part of 
the local tradition of Western Pennsylvania. They 
founded the flourishing little town of Carlisle, and left 
as a memorial of their substantial lives a church build¬ 
ing which still meets the observer’s eye in that place. 
The family has honorable memories of the Revolution, 
for Colonel Ephraim Blaine, the grandfather of the 
subject of this sketch, was one of its heroes. He was 
an officer of the Pennsylvania line, and during the last 
four years of the war was Commissary-General of the 
Northern Department. He was a determined and en¬ 
ergetic patriot, and one need use no imagination to see 
in him the source of some similar qualities of his 
grandson. He seems to have been brave and adequate 
to emergencies ; and at least the little American army 
gathered in its infirm remnants at Valley Forge had 
cause to credit him with the latter virtue. In the des¬ 
perate straits to which the vacillation and incapacity of 
Congress, and the rigors of a cruel winter brought 
General Washington and his army he was the stout 
supporter of both. It was for him as one of the Com- 
missaries-General to find a way to maintain the army, 
and as it was not to be found he made it—made it by 
liberal use of his own purse and appeals to his friends. 


BOYHOOD. 


3 


To the extent of his power he left nothing undone, and 
it is not altogether a fanciful conjuring up of terrors 
after the event to say, as it is said by excellent author¬ 
ity, that the Continental troops might very well have 
starved without his help. 

INIr. Blaine’s grandfather, from whom he is named, in¬ 
tended originally, we are told, to enter upon a profes¬ 
sional and political career ; “but a somewhat prolonged 
residence in Europe after he had completed his studies 
diverted him, as it has so many young Americans, from 
following his first and better ambition. He returned 
to his home in 1793, bringing with him, as special bearer 
of dispatches, a celebrated treaty with a foreign govern¬ 
ment, since become historic.” 

In this country it is the custom to look intently to 
the man himself, with slight consideration of his ances¬ 
try ; and certainly if he is not his own justification he is 
not likely to be justified by the dead. But if anything 
in the brief American past is to be accounted creditable 
to the inheritors of its glories, it must be the efforts that 
brought us nearer independence. Such honor as that 
is due Colonel 6laine, and by right of descent, if you 
will, to his grandson. This stout old soldier, in softer 
times of peace, was one of the generous and hospitable 
race of Esquires which, so far north as Pennsylvania 
at least, has vanished as completely as if it had never 
been. ‘ It was a race which kept its lofty and virtuous 
traditions sweet, which honored women but was not less 
chivalrous toward men, which was informed in all rela- 


4 


JAMES G. BLA EVE. 


tions by a knightly and splendid courtesy—which, in 
fine, spent very rich and admirable lives. 

Ephraim Blaine, the father of James G. Blaine, 
came into Washington County about i8i8, having the 
largest landed possessions of any man of his age in 
Western Pennsylvania, owning an estate which, had it 
been properly preserved, would have amounted to-day 
to many millions. In 1825 he deeded to the EconoTmites 
the splendid tract of land on which their towm with all 
its improvements and all its w’ealth now stands. The 
price was $25,000 for a property whose value to-day, 
even if unimproved, would be a princely fortune. There 
were also timber tracts on the Allegheny, and coal tracts 
on the Monongahela, at that day of no special value, 
which now represent large fortunes in the hands of those 
fortunate enough to hold them. Very near the large 
tracts owned by his father and grandfather, Mr. Blaine 
is now the possessor of one of the most valuable coal 
properties in the Monongahela valley. In area it is 
but a fraction of that which he might have hoped to 
inherit ; but in value it is much greater than that of 
the whole landed estate, of his father fifty years ago. 

In all this the biographer is conscious of a reversal 
of the severe and meagre story upon which those who 
have written of recent presidential candidates have 
liked to dwell, and it must be trusted that the prosperity 
which blessed the endeavors of the Blaine emierants 
in the valley of the Cumberland will not prove an 
offence to any honest soul. They were prosperous; 


BOYHOOD. 


and if that is a shameful fact, the truth must neverthe¬ 
less be told. That they not only acquired wealth, but 
used it largely and toward the finer goods of life will 
perhaps not mitigate the wrong, if wrong it was. If 
they had known that a descendent of theirs was to be¬ 
come a candidate for an office to which one of the rec.- 
ornmendations has sometimes been early poverty, they 
might* have refrained their hands, and by using their 
honest labor in less profitable fields, or more probably 
by using less of it, might have kept themselves poor. 
To those who may have a vague grudge against them, 
and through them against Mr. Blaine, because they did 
not, it will be a satisfaction to know that at the time of 
his birth the family was far from richly bestead. Ephra¬ 
im Blaine, his father, was a man of the best education, 

who had travelled rather widely in Europe and South 

« 

America before settling in Pennsndvania to the perform¬ 
ance of the respectable functions of Justice of the 
Peace—an office which since his day has parted with 
something of its dignity. Later he filled the more im¬ 
portant position known in Pennsylvania as Prothono- 
tary. He had inherited a large fortune for the times, 
but his unstinted hospitality, the support of an increas¬ 
ing family, and in a larger measure his handsome gifts 
to charity crippled him, and at the time of James’ birth, 
though not suffering from poverty, he was at least 
equally removed from wealth. The conditions of the 
entrance upon the world of this second son will there¬ 
fore be seen to have been reasonably presidential. 


6 JAMES G. BLAINE. 

On the side of his father he was of Scotch-Irish ex¬ 
traction, and in the matter of religion, on the same side, 
a very solidly descended Presbyterian. His father had 
married a Roman Catholic, Maria Gillespie, but he was 
educated in the sect of his father, as were all the other 
cjiildren, of whom there were seven ; there were besides 
James four sons, and he had two sisters. One of the 
calmest and most judicious utterances of recent*years 
upon the subject of religion—certainly the wisest, in¬ 
spired by the intrusion of tlie subject upon politics—is 
that of Mr. Blaine’s in a private letter written so long 
ago as 1876. 

“ My ancestors on my father’s side were, as you 
know, always identified with the Presbyterian Church, 
and they were prominent and honored in the old colony 
of Pennsylvania. But I will never consent to make any 
public declaration upon the subject, and for two rea¬ 
sons : First, because I abhor the introduction of any¬ 
thing that looks like a religious test or qualification for 
ofiice in a republic where perfect freedom of conscience 
is the birthright of every citizen ; and, second, because 
my mother was a devoted Catholic. I would not for a 
thousand Presidencies speak a disrespectful word of my 
mother’s religion, and no pressure will draw me into 
any avowal of hostility or unfriendliness to Catholics, 
tlioLigh I have never received, and do not expect, any 
political support from them.” 

James G. Blaine was born in a plain but ample dwell¬ 
ing, on the single street of West Brownsville, a hamlet 
in Union Township, Washington County, Pa., not 


BOYIIOOIX 


/ 


far from the scene of the campaign which ended in 
Braddock’s defeat by the Indians. In Brownsville 
proper the visitor is still shown the residence of his 
grandfather, Colonel Blaine, a wooden building to which 
a brick addition has been made in later years. The 
mother of General Sherman’s wife happens to have been 
born at a little distance from Colonel Blaine’s home. 
On the hills above West Brownsville the curious in¬ 
quirer may also see the house in which Ephraim Blaine 
and Miss Gillespie were married, and, finally, the half- 
dozen houses which quarrel for precedence as the birth¬ 
place of this sketch’s subject. Mr. Blaine has himself 
disposed of this interesting contest by fixing upon a 
certain dwelling among these as the scene of his earliest 
recollections. The building is of wood, two stories in 
height, and removed, in accordance with the inscrutable 
Pennsylvania custom, as little as possible from the road. 
A narrow grass space decorates the front, and in for¬ 
mer years there was the liberal acreage behind, which 
the German pioneers have taught the people of South¬ 
ern Pennsylvania must by no means be allowed in 
front. This, which may once have been a garden, ran 
to the river while Ephraim Blaine owned the house, 
and must have made an admirable play-ground for his 
numerous children. The house is a solidly built struct¬ 
ure, and though its ceilings are low and its windows 
small, will remain a comfortable residence for many 
years. In the true spirit of biography it ought perhaps 
to be said that the visitor to this house is welcomed in a 


8 


JAMES G. B I. A EVE. 

hall of the spacious Southern sort, from which a large 
parlor opens. In this low-ceiled room an enormous 
chimney mantel has been blocked up ; but it is a dull 
fancy which cannot set Ephraim Blaine before it in the 
midst of his unfailing company of guests—the centre of 
scenes of stately gayety. From this house Mr. Blaine’s 
father removed, in 1843, to take up his duties as Pro- 
thonotary, at Washington, the county seat. 

Ephraim Blaine was careful to give all his children an 
excellent education, and when James had completed at 
home his early studies in the elementary principles, he 
was sent to the home of a relative at Lancaster, Ohio. 
This relative was Thomas Ewing, then Secretary of the " 
Treasurv. James Blaine was eleven when he went to 
Lancaster, and he began at once to prepare himself for 
dollege, studying with his cousin, Thomas Ewing, junior, 
now General Thomas Ewing, and once a member of 
Congress. The boys studied under especially advan¬ 
tageous conditions, for their tutor was William Lyons, 
brother of Lord Lyons, and uncle of the then British 
Minister at Washington. He seems to have been an 
early type of the visiting Englishman, and a highly for¬ 
tunate type for these young students, for after two years 
of instruction from him, James Blaine, at the early age 
of thirteen, entered Washington College. 

His father, with whom he lived at Washington dur¬ 
ing his college course, died soon after its completion, 
and his grave may be seen beside that of his wife in the 
Roman Catholic cemetery at Brownsville. The mon- 


BOYHOOD. 


9 


ument which tells their life-story with simple brevity 
stands in the shadow of the little stone church. The 
burial plot lies alone upon a hill, and looks down from 
its secure repose upon the Monongahela River. 


AT COLLEGE. 


The history of Washington and Jefferson College, 
which has accomplished its excellent work in a quiet 
way, and is little known, it will be interesting to briefly 
recount. It had its origin, as the colleges of New Eng¬ 
land had, in the general respect for religion and learn¬ 
ing, and the need of institutions which might be not 
only conservers of these things and centres for in¬ 
struction in them, but sources of supply to the min¬ 
istry. Before they had made a home for themselves 
the people of Western Pennsylvania made a home for 
those things of the spirit which were dearest to them. 
It is a rare devotion which inspires the building of 
churches and schools in advance of full provision for 

• V. 

more material needs. It belongs only to the sturdiest 
class of men—men who have done much for the world ; 
and is worth noting where we find it. 

It was mainly with the purpose of providing a means 
for the nurture of a ministry at home that the Rev. John 
M'Millan, Rev. Joseph Smith, and Rev. Thomas Dod es- 


AT COLLEGE. 


I r 

tablished schools of their own at Chartiers, Buffalo, and 
Ten Mile, in Washington County, about 1780. The 
most successful of these Latin schools, as they were 
called, was that under the charge of the Rev. John 
M‘Millan, and when an academy was established at 
*Canonsburgh, in 1791, his prosperous school was 
merged in it. One of the principals of this academy, 
James Carnahan, was afterward President of Prince¬ 
ton, and one of his successors became the first president 
of the college which grew out of it, and which in 1802 
was chartered by the State and named Jefferson. It is 
not a thing of which Jefferson boasts, but it Avas the 
first institution of the higher learning west of the 
Alleghanies. 

In the same county another college had groAvn up by 
the side of Jefferson, called Washington. It was also 
sprung from an academy, and in that form Avas only 
five years younger than the toAvn of Washington in 
Avhich it stood, having been chartered in 1787. The 
names of the three ministers who in a remote Avay 
founded Jefferson stand first on the list of the incorpo¬ 
rators of Washington Academy. In 1805 Rca*. MattheAV 
Brown became at the same time the first pastor of the 
Presbyterian Church at Washington, and Principal of 
the Academy, and under him it met such success that 
in 1806 the State Legislature gave the trustees a college 
charter. It had scarcely been established Avhen a union 
Avas proposed Avith its young neighbor Jefferson, but 
this Avise move was not fully accomplished until 1869. 


12 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


By the act which united the two colleges the alumni of 
both are accounted as alumni of the new College of 
Washington and Jefferson, and Mr. Blaine’s college may 
therefore be said to be Washington and Jefferson, though 
in fact it was Washington. 

This was probably, when James Blaine entered it in* 
1843, as good a small college as he would have found 
by going farther from home; and it had the advantage 
of all the lesser colleges : the close relation of pupil 
and teacher. The class with which young Blaine entered 
was of about the usual number—thirty-three, and the 
brief list of it may be interesting. The present occupa¬ 
tions of its members—/ denoting lawyer, m minister, p 
physician—are indicated after each name, and those who 
have died are distinguished by the sinister star. 

George Baird, Jr., /., Wheeling, W. Va. 

* Andrew Barr, Wysox, Pa., 1864. 

James G. Blaine, LL.D., /., Editor, Speaker Legislature of Maine, 
Speaker U. S. H. R., Senator and Secretary of State, Augusta, Me. 
Robert C. Colmery, Delavan, Ill. 

JosiAH C. Cooper, p., Philadelphia, Pa. 

♦Thomas Creighton, 

George D. Curtis, Moundsville, W. Va. 

H 

♦Cephas Dodd, /., Washington, Pa. 

Hugh W. Forbes, in., -Montezuma, Iowa. 

Alex. M, Gow, Pres. Dixon College, Ill., Fontanelle, Iowa. 

John H. Hampton, /., Pittsburgh, Pa. 

♦John C. Hervey, Wheeling, W. Va. 

R. Campbell Holliday, /., Moundsville, W. Va. 

John G. Jacob, Editor, Wellsburgh, W. Va. 

Richard H. Lee, Jr., /., Lewiston, Pa. 

Hon. John V. B. Lemoyne, /., Chicago, Ill., M. C. 

La Fayette Markle, L, Editor, Philadelphia, Pa. 


Al' COLLEGE. 


13 


Gasper M. Miller, p., Ottawa, 111 . 

*Ja.mes R. Moore, Prin. Academy, Morgantown, W. Va,, 1864- 
* William S. Moore, Editor, Washington, Pa. 

M. P. Morrison, Monongahela City, Pa. 

Robert J. Munce, Washington, Pa. 

Edward B. Neely, St. Joseph, Mo. 

William M. Orr, /., Orrville, O. 

♦Thomas W. Porter, /., Waynesburg, Pa. 

Samuel Power, Nevada. 

Hon. Wm. H. H. M. Pusey, /., Senator, Iowa; M. C., Council Bluffs, 
Iowa. 

♦Huston Quail, /., Washington, Pa. 

John A. Rankin, Xenia, Ill. 

Robert Robb, m., Brownsville, Oregon. 

♦James H. Smith, Allegheny County, Pa. 

John PI. Storer, p., Triadelphia, W. Va. 

Alex. Wilson, /., Washington, Pa. 

One of his classmates, Alexander M. Gow, of Fonta- 
nelle, Iowa, writes Mr. Blaine’s biographer that while at 
College he was “ a boy of pleasing manners and agree¬ 
able address, quite popular among the students and in 
society. He was a better scholar than student. Hav¬ 
ing very quick perceptions and a remarkable memory 
he was - able to catch and retain easilv what came to 
others by liard work. In tlie literary society he was a 
politician, and it was there, I think, that he received a 
good deal of the training that made him wliat he is.” 
The motlier of his college room-mate remembers very 
well when lier son brought him home to spend a vaca- 
tion. She speaks of him as a “ raw, angular fellow, with 
a big nose,” and says that when she met him a year or 
two ago she was “ astounded to lind that he remem¬ 
bered every incident of those boyish days, and could tell 


H 


JAMES G. BLA/NE. 


her many things which she had forgotten. . He remem¬ 
bered all the family, their relatives and the neighbors, 
and could talk of Ids visit as though It had been but 
yesterday.” 

H. H.*M. Pusey, of Iowa, anotlier of his classmates, 
and a member of Congress from Iowa, says : 

‘‘James Blaine, as I remember him, was a pretty well- 
built boy and a hard student. He had an impediment 
of his speech, however, which prevented him from join¬ 
ing in our debates and declamations, but he could dis¬ 
tance all his classmates in the matter of studies, and his 
memory was remarkable. We had in the college a liter¬ 
ary society, of which I was president about the time 
Blaine was sixteen years old. One day he came to me 
and said : ‘ B-b ill, I would like to be p-president of the 
literary. Can you f-f-fix it for me ? ’ I answered : ‘ Why, 
what do you know about the literary society ? You have 
never taken any part in the debates and have always 
preferred to pay your fine to taking active part. Do 
you know anything about parliamentary practice ?’ He 
replied : ‘ No, but I can c-c-commit Cushing’s Manual to 
memory in one night’ Well, the result was that at the 
next meeting I ‘ fixed it ’ for him, and at the meeting 
next week Blaine was elected president, vice Fuse}", 
term expired. As he had promised, he committed the 
entire contents of Cushing’s Manual, and he proved the 
best president tlie literary society of the college ever 
had. * 

‘‘ I remember one day his father told him to get up 
early and go to the market to buy a turkey. He gave 
him a dollar, which was a good deal of money in those 
days. Well, James brought home the bird and handed 


AT COLLEGIA. 


15 


it to old Dinah, the colored cook of the Blaine family. 
When the elder Blaine came down to breakfast Dinah 
greeted him : ‘ Mars Blaine, dat dar turkey what Mars 
Jim biiyed dis mawnin’ am de quarest turkey I’s ever 
seed. Deed it is. Mars Blaine.’ 

“ ‘Why, what’s the matter with it, Dinah? ain’t it big 
enough ?’ replied the old gentleman. ‘It ought to be, 
surely; Jim paid a dollar for it.’ 

“ ‘ Oh yes. Mars Blaine, dc turkey is big ’nuff, but it 
am de funniest turkey dis yer nigger ever seed.’ 

“ ‘ Mars Blaine ’ went out to the kitchen to look at 
the ‘turkey’ and found it to be a ten-year-old goose. 

“ lie called Jim down and hauled him over the coals, 
saying : ‘Why, Jim, you ought to be ashamed of your¬ 
self. Fifteen years old and can’t tell a turkey from a 
goose!’ 

“ Jim hung his head and simply replied : ‘ Why, how’s 
a boy to tell a turkey from a goose when its feathers arc 
off.”'^’ 

Another who seems to have known him savs : 

“ To the new scholars who entered in succeeding 
classes he was a hero — uniformly kind to them, ready 
to give assistance and advice, and eager to make pleas¬ 
ant their path in college life. His handsome person 
and neat attire ; his ready sympathy and prompt assist¬ 
ance ; his frank, generous nature, and his brave manly 
bearing, ntade him the best known, the best loved, 
and the most popular boy at college. He was the ar¬ 
biter among younger boys in all their disputes, and the 
authority with those of his own age on all questions.” 

Voung Blaine’s chief diversion while in college seems 
to have been the hunting of the bushy-tailed fox, which 


JAMES G. BLA EVE. 


l6 

abounded in the region. In his sportsman’s excursions 
he often accompanied a negro named Randolph Tearle, 
who was accounted the most skilful huntsman in the 
valley. Washington County is in the midst of gently 
undulating hills, covered with generous forests, and was 
a fruitful field for this kind of sport when James Blaine 
roamed over it as a boy. The county is now, as it had 
begun to be then, a rich agricultural region. More wool 
is taken from the sheep that pasture on its hills than 
from those of any other county in the United States, 
and it has fairly productive beds of coal. On its streams 
the college lad beguiled his idle hours boating or fishing. 
The Monongahela River is the eastern boundary of 
Washington County, and there are numerous creeks 
within its limits. One of his acquaintances in the town 
of Washington says : “There is not a stump or rock on 
these hills tliat Blaine doesn’t know. He knows the 
country about here better than most of the people who 
have never lived anywhere else. He must have scoured 
these hills while he was a boy.” 

He is very well remembered by every one about his 
old home, of course—that is the privilege of all men 
who go away from any home to become famous. But 
not all men in whose careers^their ancient neighbors 
find cause for honest pride, are held in such kindly re¬ 
membrance. In Brownsville and Washington the visi¬ 
tor’s ear is assailed with reminiscences of his early years. 
These are not all memorable or even very entertaining, 
but they are invariably delivered with a heartiness 


AT COLLEGE. 


17 


which gives them a value as expressions of the popular 
liking for Mr. Blaine among those who have known him 
intimately. Perhaps he is liked not only because these 
people remember him pleasantly, but because he remem¬ 
bers them pleasantly, for when he has returned to his 
old home his capacious memory has accompanied him, 
and his success has not taught him to deny the humblest 
of his old associates. 

The class list will have shown his standing upon 
graduation,—certainly not discreditable to one who is 
remembered as a good but not sedulous student by his 
companions. It is said that he excelled in mathematics 
and the languages. It was a fit close to his college 
career, as well as a prophetic beginning of his life-work, 
that his commencement oration should have been upon 
“The Duty of an Educated American.” 


2 


EXPERIMENTS. 


“A FEW months after graduation, in October,” says 
Mr. Blaine, in a letter already presented to the reader, 
“ I went to Kentucky.” That is a simple record, and 
conveys no intimation of the causes which impelled the 
step ; and it does not become his biographer to be more 
wise. He sought his fortune in what was then known 
as the West; and the journey, though a briefer one in 
miles than that to the region now knowr; under that 
name, may very well have occupied as much time, for 
he went by boat. His fortune was not found at the 
Western Military Institute, a school for boys estab¬ 
lished at Blue Lick Springs, Kentucky. But as a 
professor he won the general liking which had fallen 
naturally to him as a student, and was rather uncom¬ 
monly successful, it would seem, in a calling which 
could not have been congenial. He was upon excellent 
terms with all the boys, kept ready command of their 
Christian names, as well as of the characters for which 
those names stood, and was able in this way to exert a 


EXPERIMENTS. 


19 


positive influence, though occupying a subordinate posi¬ 
tion. When a contest arose between the owners of the 
Springs and the faculty touching the removal of tlie 
school he exhibited his personal courage. The diffi¬ 
culty finally occasioned a melee in which the knife and 
revolver played the usual part. The young professor 
from Pennsylvania only used his fist, but used it skil¬ 
fully, fighting with the greatest coolness and courage. 

But the most important fruit of his Kentucky resi¬ 
dence was not the proof it offered of his personal cour¬ 
age, his ability to do a thing not after his calling well, 
or his security in the approval of his fellows in a wider 
world than that of the college. It was at Blue Lick 
Springs that he met the admirable woman who became 
liis wife. Miss Harriet Stanwood, a native of Maine, 
had been sent to be educated at a seminary for young 
ladies at Millersburg, Kentucky. This school was 
presided over by the wife of the principal of the West¬ 
ern Military Institute, and was twenty miles from Blue 
Lick Springs. The intercourse between the two schools 
was of course constant, and it was natural that the pro¬ 
fessors of the military academy shoidd meet the young 
girls of the seminary. No account remains of the woo¬ 
ing, but in little more than a year after his arrival in 
Kentucky he married Miss Stanwood, and soon after 
returned with her to Pennsylvania, where he for a time 
studied law. Though prepared he did not present him¬ 
self for admission to the Bar, but the grounding in 
legal principles then gained has been of essential ser- 


20 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


vice in all his later work. He was perhaps in need of 
some more immediately remunerative occupation than 
the study of the law, for in 1854, being then the father 
of a boy of two, he answered the advertisement of Mr. 
William Chapin, Principal of the Pennsylvania Institu¬ 
tion for the Instruction of the Blind, for a teacher. 
This excellent home and school for the blind still stands 
at the corner of Twentieth and Race Streets in Phila¬ 
delphia, and Mr. Chapin is still its admirable principal. 
He has furnished the writer of these lines with “the 
little he so pleasantly remembers” about the young 
man who offered himself for the vacant position thirty 
years ago : 

“We needed,” he writes, “a principal instructor in 
the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the 
Blind, in the year 1852. A large number answered my 
advertisement; and one, whose fine manly presence 
and intellectual features struck me so favorably that 
no difficulty existed in making a selection. The ap¬ 
pointment was at once made. His estimable wife and 
little son, Stanley, a beautiful boy of about two years, 
was welcomed with the husband and father, though 
not within the rules of the institution in such cases, 
and the only exception ever made. But we could not 
afford to reject a case whose promise was as one in a 
thousand. 

“We were not disappointed. He had charge of the 
higher classes in literature and science. The blind are 
• taught orally in great part. Their mental work is 


EXPERIME^l'S. 


21 


remarkable. The most abstruse and difficult mathe¬ 
matical problems are mastered by tliem. And Mr. 
Blaine’s brilliant mental powers were exactly qualified 
to enlighten and instruct the interesting minds before 
him, and solve all their difficulties. 

“ He was a good speaker and talker. Me had a re¬ 
markable fluency of words, and his language was good. 
He was an excellent scholar. His memory of facts and 
persons of the long past was wonderful. He was es¬ 
pecially fond of debate, and his ready memory gave 
him great advantages. We had many argumentative 
contests together during the two years he remained 
with us. He was positive, self-possessed, and deter¬ 
mined, if possible, to gain his point. 

‘‘ Mr. Blaine, it will be remembered, was at that period 
(1852 to 1854) ayoungman. His experiences since then 
have all been in the direction of improvement and great 
enlargement of opportunity in public life. If lie was 
a young intellectual giant then, we may presume those 
powers are now somewhat colossal. 

“ He left our institution in 1854, to take charge of a 
public journal in Maine. I marked his rapid course. 
He was elected soon to the State Legislature. I noticed, 
but without surprise, his statistical reports on State and 
other subjects. He was great on .figures, dates, and 
facts, as had been already noticed when with us, in the 
compilation, in manuscript, of a quarto volume of 284 
jDages, giving all the business, history, and facts con¬ 
nected with the progress of the institution until the day 


'-y -y 


JAMES G. EGA/ME. 


he left. This large voluntary work, in his own quiet 
hours after the duties of the day, was a surprise and 
gratification to the managers, who made a suitable rec¬ 
ognition of this interesting gift. The volume is pre¬ 
served in the institution as a testimonial of its author, 
and is the more valued for the great and popular favor 
he now enjoys throughout the country.” 

“ He was a man,” Mr. Chapin has elsewhere said, “ of 
very decided will, and was very much disposed to argu¬ 
ment. He was young then—only twenty-two—and was 
rather impulsive, leaping to a conclusion very quickly. 
But he was always ready to defend his conclusions, 
however suddenly he seemed to have reached them. 
We had many a familiar discussion in this very room, 
and his arguments always astonished me by the knowl¬ 
edge they displayed of facts in history and politics. His 
memory was remarkable, and seemed to retain details 
which ordinary men would forget.” 

The title-page of the book which lie compiled reads : 

Journal 
of the 

Pennsylvania Institution 
for the 

INSTRUCTION OF THE BLIND, 

* from its foundation. 

Compiled from official records 
by 

James G. Blainp:. 

* . 1854. 



EXPERIMENTS. 


23 


The book is made with perfect method, the abbrevia¬ 
tions used being explained on the first page. On the 
tly-leaf is the following : 

“On this and the four following pages will be found 
some notes in regard to the origin of the Pennsylvania 
Institution for the Instruction of the Blind, furnished 
by I. Francis Fisher.” “From this page, the i88th,” 
says a Philadelphia journal, “ in which is the last entry 
made by Mr, Blaine, every line *is a model of neatness 
and accuracy. On every page is a wide margin. At 
the top of tlie margin is the year, in ornamental figures. 
Below it is a brief statement of what the text contains 
opposite that portion of the marginal entry. Every yCar’s 
record clqses with an elaborate table, giving the attend¬ 
ance of members of the board. The last pages of tlic 
book are filled with alphabetical lists of offici^rs of the 
institution and statistical tables, compiled by the same 
patient and untiring hand. One of the lists is that of 
the ‘principal teachers.’ No. 13 is followed by the 
signature ‘James G. Blaine, from August 5, 1852, to’ 
— and then, in another hand, the record is completed 
with the date November 23, 1854.” 

“ I think that the book,” says Mr. Chapin, “ illustrates 
the character of the man in accurate mastery of facts 
and orderly presentation of details. We still use it for 
reference, and Mr. Frank Battles, the assistant princi¬ 
pal, is bringing the record down to the present time. 

“Mr. Blaine taught mathematics, in which he ex¬ 
celled, and the liiglicr branches. His wife was univer- 


24 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


saily beloved, and often read aloud to the pupils. 
When he went away to become editor of the Kenfiehec 
Jouriial we felt that we had lost a man of large parts, 
and we have watched his upward career with great in¬ 
terest. He has called here a number of times when be 
stopped in the city on his way to and from Washington. 
The last time he was here he heard with great interest 
of the progress of D. D. Wood, the blind organist of St. 
Stephen’s church, who was one of his pupils, and re¬ 
called Mr. Wood’s proficiency in mathematics.” 

‘‘Three persons now holding positions in the institu¬ 
tion, Michael M. Williams, William McMillan, and Miss 
Maiaa Cormany, were pupils under Mr. Blaine. Mr. 
Williams says : ‘ Everybody loved Mr. Blaine and his 
wife. Both were always ready to do anything for our 
amusement in leisure hours, and we had a great deal of 
fun, into which they entered heartily. I think that Mrs. 
Blaine read nearly all of Dickens’ works aloud to us ; 
and Mr. Blaine used to make us roar with laughter by 
reading out of a work entitled ‘ Charcoal Sketches.’ 
In the evening he used to read aloud to both the boys 
and girls. Then we would wind up with a spelling-bee. 
^'^nnetimes Mr. Blaine would give out the words and 
sometimes one of the big boys would do it, while Mr. 
Blaine stood up among the boys. Then we would have 
great fun trying to ‘spell the teacher down.’ ” 

When this institution, in which Mr. Blaine for the 
second time discharged the functions of teacher, was 
first established, there was but one other similar estab- 


EXPERIMENTS. 


25 


lishment in the country, that of Boston, which had be¬ 
gun its work only the year previous. “ It was, there¬ 
fore,” we are told, “an untried enterprise that its found¬ 
ers undertook, and its success is wholly due to their 
wisdom, energy, and devotion to the interests of the 
blind. Starting in a rented house, with an assessed in¬ 
come of only $1,000 a year, it now possesses a fine 
building, and has, in addition to receiving a subsidy 
from the State, through the liberality of its friends, 
an income of its own. The fiftieth anniversary of the 
foundation of the institution was publicly celebrated 
by appropriate exercises at Association Hall, on March 
5, 1884.” 



/ 


IV. 

EDITOR AND STATE POLITICAL LEADER. 

In his work here it is evident that Mr. Blaine was 
successful, but his wife was anxious that their home 
should be made in her native State, and, guided perhaps 
by his own ambition for a larger field as well as by a 
spirit of complaisance to his wife’s wishes, he* resigned 
his position in the school and removed to Augusta, 
where his home has since been. He found himself, per¬ 
haps, without certain of the theories of life and affairs 
which prevail in Maine, but he either readily assimi¬ 
lated them or found that his own sound and honest 
theories sufficed ; for, from the editorial chair of the 
Kennebec J^ournal, purchased with Joseph Baker, a 
prominent lawyer of that place, he presently exercised 
an important influence in his adopted vState. The jour¬ 
nal was a weekly and an organ of the Whig party, and 
under Mr. Blaine’s management did vigorous service 
for that expiring cause. In 1857, just after the first 
convention of the Republican party, he disposed of his 
interest in the journal and assumed editorial charge of 


EDITOR AND STATE POLITICAL LEADER. 2 / 

a daily newspaper in Portland, called the Advertiser. 
During the campaign of i860 he fora time again edited 
\\\Q Kennebec y'ournal^ its regular editor being ill ; but 
with his election to the State Legislature, in 1858, he 
gave up the active pursuit of journalism. Ilis connec¬ 
tion with the press may, however, be reckoned as ex¬ 
tending from 1854 to i860, a period of six years. 

The loosening of party lines at this time offered a fruit¬ 
ful opportunity to young men. The old Whig party 
was breaking up, inadequate to the solution of the tre¬ 
mendous problems which had risen. When a party 
came into sudden being, eagerly ready to solve the larg¬ 
est problems, and, though so swift a growth, entirely 
capable of solving them, the moribund Whig organiza¬ 
tion died instantly, and the young Republican party 
took up its abandoned endeavors with fresh energy and 
a determination before which everything went down. 
It came into existence with an alertness at which dazed 
conservatives blinked, and it organized, and uttered its 
simple convictions with a positiveness which made both 
its friends and opponents start a little. Its convic¬ 
tions involved large consequences, for they expressed 
themselves in a moral purpose, and when that danger¬ 
ous thing has got abroad we know that small parties 
and small men must take care of themselves. It was a 
party built upon an idea—a prodigious ideij. It looked 
to the future ; it broke with the past, and it was there¬ 
fore pre-eminently the party of young men. One young 
man, at his editorial desk in a town of Maine, felt that 


28 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


with the accustomed quickness of his sensibility. He 
saw that the time of the Whig organization had come ; 
he recognized the fresh impulse, he perceived its value, 
and he was among the first in his State to thro.w himself 
into the new cause. It was a time when young men 
readily secured a hearing. They were indeed the archi¬ 
tects of the party which had just sprung into being. 
This movement, coming at the outset of Mr. Blaine’s 
political career, gave him an opportunity for which he 
might otherwise have waited long. His writings on the 
subject which now engrossed all men’s thoughts were too 
vigorous and earnest to escape attention, and he found 
himself a leader almost before he could have expected 
to be thoroughly recognized as a subaltern. His early 
success is the explanation of his attainment, at little 
more than fifty, to the highest honor of his party. The 
reasons of that early success are obvious, and it is im¬ 
possible to refuse one’s admiration to the courageous 
conviction and the prompt action which gave it force. 
It is an old message now—that which came to the large- 
fibred men of 1856—it has grown dull in our ears. But 
its genuineness was not so clear then. Enemies strove 
to hinder its voice, and it was scoffed at. The men who 
heard that whispered message through the contumely 
of adversaries and the doubtful murmurs of half-hearted 
friends, who.heeded it and thundered it at last through 
the iron throat of war, are men who must always be 
gratefully remembered by loyal hearts. 

The sentiments which Mr. Blaine made so freely 


EDITOR AND STATE POLITICAL LEADER. 


29 


known through the columns of a newspaper he was 
ready to champion in person ; and he was sent as a 
delegate from Maine to the first convention of the 
Republican party. He was made one of the secretaries 
of that body, and when General Fremont was nomi¬ 
nated returned home to find himself, at a ratification 
meeting, called upon for his maiden speech. A writer 
savs : 

‘‘ At that time he had exhibited all the qualifications 
of an orator, but had never ventured upon the public 
platform. He seemed to have a strong fear of address¬ 
ing a public audience, and it was only after much persua¬ 
sion that he consented, on this occasion, to speak. When 
he arose to his feet he was in such a state of perturbation 
and embarrassment that it was some time before he was 
able to command himself so as to begin to talk. From 
the moment he got possession of his voice he continued, 
and made one of the finest speeches he ever made in his 
life.” 

The late Governor Kent, of Maine, speaking of Mr. 
Blaine’s career in that State, has said : ‘‘Almost from 
the day of his assuming editorial charge of the Kennebec 
Journal^ at the early age of twenty-three, Mr. Blaine 
sprang into a position of great iniluence in the politics 
and policy of Maine. At twenty-five he was a leading 
power in the councils of the Republican party, so rec¬ 
ognized by Fessenden, Hamlin, and the two Morrills, 
and others then and still prominent in the State. Be- 
foi e he was twenty-nine he was chosen chairman of the 


30 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


Executive Committee of the Republican organization 
in Maine—a position he has held ever since, and from 
which he has practically shaped and directed every 
political campaign in the State, always leading his 
party to brilliant victory.” 


IN CONGRESS. 


An even, certain ascent has distinguished Mr. 
Blaine’s political advancement. It has gone forward 
by promotions as regular as if they had been won in the 
army or navy. The time had come for a new step 
which was to widen his field from the State to the 
Nation. 

In the convention which first nominated him for Con¬ 
gress he stated his convictions as to the policy that 
should be pursued in suppressing the rebellion. He 
said : “ The great object with us all is to subdue the 
rebellion—speedily, effectually, and finally. In our 
inarch to that end we must crush all intervening obsta¬ 
cles. If slavery or any other ‘ institution ’ stands in the 
way it must be removed. Perish all things else, the 
national life must be saved.” He added that he was 
determined to stand heartily by the Administration of 
Abraham Lincoln. He declared that he should be tlie 
unswerving adherent of the policy and measures which 
the President in his wisdom might adopt. Mr. Blaine’s 


32 


JAMES G. BLAIETE. 


patriotic utterances met with a hearty response, and he 
was elected over his Democratic competitor by the larg¬ 
est majority ever given in his district, it exceeding 3,000. 

During his first term there sat with him on the 
lloor of the House, Elihu B. Wasliburne, Owmn Love- 
joy, George W. Julian, Godlove S. Orth, Schuyler Col¬ 
fax, James F. Wilson, William B. Allison, John A. Kas- 
son, Alexander. H. Rice, Henry L. Dawes, William 
Windom, F. P. Blair, Jr., James Brooks, Erastus Corn¬ 
ing, Reuben E. Fenton, Francis Kernan, George H. 
Pendleton, Robert C. Schenck, James A. Garfield, Sam¬ 
uel J. Randall, William D. Kelley, Thaddeus Stevens, 
G. W. Schofield, and many other men who have since 
become prominent. From this time, it has properly 
been said, his career is part of the national history. He 
took at once an active part in debate, and presently be¬ 
came known as a shrewd and ready speaker. His long 
speeches were not numerous, but in the swift skirmishes 
which are constantly in progress in the House of Rep¬ 
resentatives he was excellent, even at this early stage of 
his congressional career, beyond any other member. 
The nimble movement of his mind furnished him with 
a tremendous power, and the ceaseless shower of small 
shot with which he vexed his adversaries proved, in the 
result, at least as effective as if he had trained the sol¬ 
itary canon of heavier speakers upon them. His brief¬ 
est replies and comments, even as one reads them, re¬ 
mote from the stirring scenes which induced them, and 
turned cold upon the dreary pages of the Cojigresstoual 


AV COiVGf!ESS. 


33 


Record, have a tenacious quality of life and spirit. The 
zest of this hurtling fire has the rarest power which we 
knoiv — the power to recreate the time and the occasion, 
and to put a pulse in words long stiffened into type. 
It is the force of a munificent personality. 

This dexterity, this quick and daring form of attack, 
may seem to one who merely reads of it, and has not 
been privileged by sight of it in action, a clever but su¬ 
perficial parliamentary method. But only to read the 
report of one of these animated passages at arms, which 
anyone may still do, is to become aware of the solidity 
of their foundation. They sprang from the securest 
knowledge of their subject, and were so ready because 
the chief actor in them was filled with understanding 
of the issue. Mr. Blaine's comprehension was alert even 
in his college days, but if his mind went forward by 
leaps it always alighted on perfectly firm ground. Ilis 
wide and abundant interest in every public topic contri¬ 
buted directly to the strength in rapid debate long at¬ 
tributed to him. He not only always understood but 
was always interested, and his zeal often turned what 
appeared to the casual eye a common sort of road dust — 
familiar to the House of Representatives — into a very 
fair quality of gold. His speeches are illustrated by the 
ample acquaintance with history and literature which 
he gained as a young man, and his comparisons arc 
usually strikingly felicitous. His style, however, is sim¬ 
ple and direct, and leaves the flowers of rhetoric uncut. 
It assails its subject with straightforward vigor and takes 
3 


34 JAMES G. BLAINE. 

hold of the substance of it. His earnest manner carries 
a conviction of its own with it, and those who like it are 
willing to grant in advance the unfailing cogency of ar¬ 
gument upon which it rests. 

During his six years on the floor of the House Mr. 
Blaine was a favorite among frequenters of the gal¬ 
leries, not alone for that common and not necessarily 
lofty ability to enliven the drowsy hours, but for his 
devoted championship of every just and wise measure. 
It was a prophecy of the wider popularity which began 
to reward his tireless zeal in the public service. 

In writing of his power as a speaker, his unusual 
success in what is euphoniously termed “ stump speak¬ 
ing” should be recognized. The qualities which gave 
him the leadership of the House, lent his political ad¬ 
dresses to the people a force entirely new, and peculi¬ 
arly well adapted to its object. His speeches for can¬ 
didates have won them votes. No one who hears him 
can doubt that; but it has been repeatedly shown. In 
his own State, where it is easy to number political pulse- 
beats, and to learn their origin with some accuracy, his 
championship has more than once saved an election, 
and in the broader field of national politics, though his 
influence is not so easily measured, it has counted for a 
tremendous force. One wonders if the speeches of a 
canvass in common really do gain votes; we have at 
least all -heard addresses which must have lost votes. 
The quality in Mr. Blaine’s manner of talking to a 
political meeting—for like other successful speakers of 


hV CON'GRESS. 


35 


this kind he uses no formal oratory—which leaves in 
every mind a confidence of its effect, is not a tiling to 
be reached by casual analysis. It may be doubted if 
any process would make it known at last. The current 
explanation, we believe, is “personal magnetism,” but 
that is very weak. We at once ask, what is “ personal 
magnetism?” and as no one knows what it is, though 
every one has felt it, the answer waits. It is at least a 
remarkable power ; it engrosses and fascinates his au¬ 
diences. His zeal, his energy, his overmastering belief 
in the truth and righteousness of his cause, are things 
which reach the dullest minds and sway them. Ilis 
arguments, stoutly but plainly put, have a very especial 
and unusual cogency, and their march is in a solid 
front. It is, however, in a less palpable quality than any 
of these that his highest power resides—a quality 
which in trying to express we begin to compare and to 
find symbols for. There is no adequate word, and our 
borrowings from the language of the most mysterious 
of natural forces are themselves only attempts at the 
expression of the inexpressible. 

An attempt to pursue his course step by step during 
the long term of his service in Congress would be weari¬ 
some. He spoke upon every important measure, and 
briefly discussed many petty laws about which none 
but sedulous readers of the Congressional Record will 
ev’cr be perfectly informed. They had their beaiing 
at the time, as evreything has ; and it may as w'ell be 
admitted, as a reply in advance to those malevolent 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


36 

students of the proceedings of Congress who assist at 
all presidential campaigns, that Mr. Blaine occasional¬ 
ly fancied they had a bearing which later it was plain 
they had not, and that he made mistakes enough in his 
votes to relieve his biographer of the duty of proving 
his perfection. 

The list of committees on which he has served dur- 
inof his Ions: term of service exhibits almost .as well as 
'any other record the kind of work he has done during 
his long term of congressional service. They are the 
better worth giving in full, as they represent the kind of 
work for which, except among Congressmen, the labor¬ 
ious committee-men have little credit. It is usually dull 
routine labor, and can be made as abundant as one will. 
It has always been very abundant with Mr. Blaine ; by 
means of it he has doubtless saved the public treasury 
and the statute-book from more than either his friends 
or opponents know, and as it has been done in, silence 
it will perhaps bear a little trumpeting. 


First Session, Thirty-ninth Congress. 
Committee on Military Affairs. 


Robert C. Shenck, of O. 
li. C. Denning, of Conn. 
Gilman Martin, of N. IT. 
Lovell H. Rousseau, of Ky. 
John A. Bingham, of O. 


Sydenham E. Ancona, of Penn. 
John H. Ketcham, of N. Y. 
James G. Blaine., of Me. 

Chas. Sitgreaves, of N. J. 


Select Committee of One from each State represented on the Death of 

President Lincoln. 


E. B. Washburne, of Ill. 
James G. Blaine, of Me. 


R. C. SCHENCK, of O. 
G. S. Shan KLIN, of Ky. 


IN CONGRESS. 


37 


J. W. Patterson, of N. H. 

J. S. Morrill, of Vt. 

N. P. Banks, of Mass. 

G. A. Jenckes, of R. 1. 

D. C. Denning, of Conn. 

J. II. Griswold, of N. Y. 

E. R. V. Wright, of N. J. 

T. Stevens, of Penn. 

J. A. Nicholson, of Del. 

F. Thomas, of Md. 

Second Session, 
Committee 

R. C. SCHENCK, of O. 

H. C. Denning, of Conn. 

G. Marston, of N. H. 

L. H. Rousseau, of Ky. 

J. A. Bingham, of O. 

Cot}imittee 07i 

James G. Blaine, of Me. 

T. Hooper, of Miss. 

B. F. Loan, of Mo. 

B. M. Boyer, of Penn. 

W. A. Darling, of N. Y. 


G. S. Orth, of Ind. 

J. W. McClurg, of Mo. 

T. C. Beaman, of Mich. 

J. A. Kasson, of Iowa. 

J. C. Sloan, of Wis. 

W. Higby, of Cal. 

W. WiNDOM, of Minn. 

S. Clarke, of Kans. 

K. V. Whaley, of W. Va. 

Thirty-ninth Congress. 
on Military Afairs. 

S. E. Ancona, of Penn. 

J. H. Ketcham, of N. Y. 
James G. Blaiite, of Me. 
Chas. Sitg reaves, of N. J. 

War Debts of Loyal States. 

J. A. Plants, of O. 

W. A. Newell, of N. J. 

T. W. Ferry, of Mich. 

J. R. Hawkins, of Tenn. 


First Session, Fortieth Congress. 
Committee on the Rules. 

The Speaker, Jatnes G. Blaine. N. P. Banks, of Mass. 
Klihu B. Washburne, of Ill, J. Brooks, of N. Y. 

Second Session, Fortieth Congress. 
Committee on the Rules. 

7'he Speaker, James G. Blaine. N. P. Banks, of Mass. 
I'ii.iHU B. Washburne, of 111. J. Brooks, of N. Y. 


Third Session, P'ortieth Congress. 
Committee on the Rules. 

'The Speaker, James G. Blaine. N. P. Banks, of Mass. 
Elihu B. Washburne, of Ill. J. Brooks, of N. Y. 


38 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


First Session, Forty-first Congress. 
Committee on the Rtiles. 

The Speaker^ James G. Blaine. JAMES A. GarfteLD, of O. 
N. P. Banks, of Mass. James Brooks, of N. Y. 

T. W. Ferry, of Mich. 

Second Session, Forty-first Congress. 
Committee on the Rtiles. 

The Speaker, James G. Blaine. James A. Garfield, of O. 
N. P. Banks, of Mass. James Brooks, of N. Y. 

T. W. Ferry, of Mich. 

First Session, Forty-second Congress. 
Committee on the Rtiles. 

The Speaker, James G. Blaine. S. S. Cox, of N. Y. 

N. P. Banks, of Mass. S. J. Randall, of Penn. 

James A. Garfield, of O. 

Second Session, Forty-second Congress. 
Committee on the Rules. 

The Speaker, James G. Blaine. S. S. Cox, of N. Y. 

N. P. Banks, of Mass. S. J. Randall, of Penn. 

James A. Garfield, of O. 

Third Session, Forty-second Congress. 
Committee on the Rules. 

The Speaker, James G. Blaine. . S. S. Cox, of N. Y. 

N. P. Banks, of Mass. S. J. Randall, of Penn. 

James A. Garfield, of O. 

First Session, Forty-third Congress. 
Committee on the Rules. 

The Speaker, James G. Blaine. S. S. Cox, of N. Y. 
Horace Maynard, of Tenn. S. J. Randall, of Penn. 
James A. Garfield, of O. 

Second Session, Forty-third Congress. 
Committee on the Rules. 

The Speaker, James G. Blaine. S. S. Cox, of N. Y. 
Horace Maynard, of Tenn. S. J. Randall, of Penn. 
James A. Garfield, of O. 


IN’ CONGRESS. 


39 


Third Session, 

Committee on the Rules. 


The Speaker, James G. Blaine. 
Horace Maynard, of Tenn. 
James A. Garfield, of O. 

First Session, 

N. R. Morrison, of III. 
Fernando Wood, of N. Y. 

J. Hancock, of Tex. 

P. F. Thomas, of Md. 

B. H. Hill, of Ga. 

C. W. Chapin, of Miss. 

The Speaker, James G. Blaine. 
S. J. Randall, of Penn. 


Forty-third Congress. 
n 

S. S. Cox, of N. Y. 

S. J. Randall, of Penn. 

Forty-fourth Congress. 

J. T. Tucker, of Va. 
James G. Blaine, of Me. 
W. D. Kelley, of Penn. 
James A. Garfield, of O, 
II. C. Burciiard, of Ill. 


Co7n7nittee oti the Rules. 

N. P. Banks, of Mass. 
S. S. Cox, of N. Y. . 


Committee on IVays and Means. 


Select Committee of the House, on the Centennial Celebration and t/r 
proposed National Census op 1875 . 


James II. IIopkins, of Penn. 
J. Hancock, of Texas. 

W. 11. Barnum, of Conn. 

N. P. Banks, of Mass. 

C. II. Harrison, of Ill. 

W. J. O’Brien, of Md. 

A. S. Williams, of Mich. 


A. A. HardenBERG i I, of N. J. 
W. I). Kelley, of Penn. 

James G. Blaine, of Me. 

W. Lawrence, of O. 

W. II. Baker, of N. Y. 

J. R. Rainey, of S. C. 


Second Session, Forty-fourth Congress. 


Senate Committee on Appropriations. 


W. WiNDOM, of Minn. 

J. R. West, of La. 

A. A. Sargent, of Cal. 
W. B. Allison, of Iowa. 
S. W. Dorsey, of Ark. 


Jatnes G. Blaine, of Me. 
D. G. Davis, of W. Va. 
R. E. Withers, of Va. 
W. A. Wallace, of Penn 


Senate Cofnmittee on N’aval A fairs. 


A. II. Cragin, of N. H. 
H. B. Anthony, of R. I. 
A. A. Sargent, of Cal. 

S. B. Conover, of Fla, 


James G. Blaine, of Me. 
T. M. Norwood, of Ga. 
W. P. Whyte, of Md. 


40 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


Forty-fifth Congress. 


Co7)imittee on Appropriations. 


W. WiNDOM, of Minn. 

J. R. West, of La. 

A. A. Sargent, of Cal. 
W. B. Allison, of Iowa. 
S. Dorsey, of Ark. 


James G. Blaine^ of Me. 
H. G. Davis, of W, Va. 
R. E. Withers, of Va. 

W. A. Wallace, of Penn. 
J. B. Beck, of Ky. 


Conwiittee on Naval Affairs. 


A. A. Sargent, of Cal. 
H. B. Anthony, of R. I 
S. B. Conover, of Fla. 
James G. Blaine^ of Me. 


W. P. Whyte, of Md. 

J. R. McPherson, of N. J. 
C. W. Jones, of Fla. 


Committee on Rules. 

James G. Blaine, of Me. A. S. Merrimon, of N. C. 

T. W. Ferry, of Mich. 

Select Committee of the Seriate. 

B. K. Bruce, of Miss. I. G. Harris, of Tenn. 

James G. Blaine, of Me. A. Cameron, of Wis. 

W. P. Kellogg, of La. T. B. Eustis, of La. 

F. M. Cockrell, of Mo. 


First Session, Forty-sixth Congress. 


Committee on Appj'opriations. 


H. G. Davis, of W. Va. * 
R. C. Withers, of Va. 

J. B. Beck, of Ky. 

W. A. Wallace, of Penn. 
W. W. Eaton, of Conn. 


W. WiNDOM, of Minn. 
W. B. Allison, of Iowa. 
Javies G. Blaine, of Me. 
N. Booth, of Cal. 


Committee on Naval Affairs. 


J. R. McPherson, of N. J. 
W. P. Whyte, of Md. 

C. W. Jones, of Fla. 

Z. B. Vance, of N. C. 

J. T. Farley, Cal. 


H. B. Anthony, of R. I. 
James G. Blaine, of Me. 
J. D. Cameron, of Penn. 
Z. Chandler, of Mich. 


Committee on Rules. 


J. T. Morgan, of Ala. . ^ _ James G. Blaine, of Me. 

F. M. Cockrell, of Mo. 


AV C0.V(7A:ESS. 


Select Committee on the Mississippi River. 

L. Q. Lamar, of Miss. B. F. Jonas, of La. 

F. M. Cockrell, of Mo. James G. Blaine, of Me. 

1. G. Harris, of Tenn. \V. P. Kellogg, of La. 


Second Session, 
Committee 

H. G. Davis, of W. Va. 

R. C. Withers, of Va. 

J. B, Beck, of Ky. 

W. A. Wali.ace, of Penn. 

W. W. Eaton, of Conn. 


Forty-sixth Congress. 
on Appropriations. 

W. WiNDOM, of Minn. 
W. B. Allison, of Iowa. 
James G. Blaine, of Ahe. 
N. Booth, of Cal. 


Committee 

J. R. McPherson, of N. J. 

W. P. Whyte, of Md. 

C. W. Jones, of Fla. 

Z. B. Vance, of N. C. 
j. T. Farley, of Cal. 

Com mitt, 

J. T. Morgan, of Ala. 

F, M. Cockrell, of Mo. 


on Naval A jfairs. 

If. B. Anthony, of R. I. 
James G. Blaine, of Me. 
J. I). Cameron, of Penn. 
Z. Chandler, of Mich.. 

e on Rules. 

James G. Blaine, of Ale. 


Select Committee on the Mississippi River. 


L. Q. Lamar, of Miss. 

F. M. Cockrell, of Mo. 
J. G. Harris, of Tenn. 
B. F. Jonas, of La. 


James G. Blaine, of Ale. 
W. P. Kellogg, of La. 
B. K. Bruce, of Miss. 


Third Session, 
Committee 

H. G. Davis, of W. Va. 

R. C. Withers, of Va. 

J. B. Beck, of Ky. 

W. Wallace, of Penn. 

W. W. Eaton, of Conn. 

Committee 

J. R. McPherson, of N. J. 

W. P. Whyte, of Md. 

W. Jones, of Fla. 

Z. B. Vance, of N. C. 

S. T. Farley, of Cal. 


A)rty-sixth Congress. 
n Appropriations. 

W. WiNDOM, of Minn. 
W. B. Allison, of Iowa. 
James G. Blaine, op Ale. 
N. Booth, of Cal. 

n Naval Afairs. 

H. R. Anthony, of R. I. 

fames G. Blaine, of Ale. 

J. D. Cameron, of Penn. 

'r. W. Ferry, of Mich. 

« 


42 


JAMBS G. BLAINE.^ 


Committee on Rules. 


J. T. Morgan, of Ala. 

F.. M. Cockrell, of Mo. 
James G. Blaine, of Me, 


W. A. Wallace, of Penn, 
(}. F. Edmunds, of Vt. 


Conifnittee on the Mississippi River. 


L. Q. LaMar, of Miss. 

F. M. Cockrell, of Mo. 
I. G. Harris, of Tenn. 


R F. Jonas, of La. 
James G. Blaine, of Me, 
W. P. Kellogg, of La. 


Select Co 77 imittee 07i the Bill (A. 227 ) to provide that the principal Offi¬ 
cer of each of the Executive Depart77ients 77iay occupy a Seat 07i 
the Floor of the Se7iate a7td the House. 


R. CONKLING, of N. Y. 
W. B. Allison, of Iowa. 
Ja77ies G. Blahie, of Me. 
J. J. Ingalls, of Kan. 

O. H. Platt, of Conn. 


G. H. Pendleton, of O. 
D. W. VooRHEES, of Ind. 


T. F. Bayard, of Del. 
M. C. Butler, of S. C. 
J. T. Farley, of Cal. 


It has been thought convenient to set forth elsewhere, 
under separate heads, Mr. Blaine’s position on the larger 
issues which have engaged the attention of Congress 
during the past twenty years, and in these the major 
part of his congressional history will be found. Some 
connected record of his more important acts during his 
stay in the House may, however, be made with advan¬ 
tage. 

It will be seen that in the Thirty-ninth Congress he 
was Chairman of the Committee on the War Debts 
of the Loyal States. The subject engaged his best 
energies, and his first distinction as a speaker was won 
in a speech upon it, in which he contended that it was 
the duty of the General Government to assume these 
debts, and maintained the ability of the North to carrv 
on the war, then in progress. The speech attracted 


IN’ CONGRESS. 


43 


wide attention and in the Presidential election of 1864 
was used as a campaign document. When the war was 
done he returned to the matter and reported a bill for 
the payment to the States of fifty-five dollars for each 
soldier sent by them into the field. 

In 1864, he offered a resolution to the following effect : 

Resolved., That the Judiciary Committee be directed 
to inquire into the expediency of proposing an amend¬ 
ment to tlie Constitution of the United States, by strik¬ 
ing out the fifth clause of section nine, article one, 
which forbids the levying of a tax on articles exported 
from any State.” 

Me was one of the most active members of the House 
in framing the important Reconstruction acts which for 
several years following the war engrossed almost the 
entire attention of Congress. 

On January 22, 1866, Mr. Fessenden, of the Senate, 
and Mr. Stevens, of the House of Representatives, 
brought before those bodies a partial report from com¬ 
mittee, recommending the passage of the following joint 
resolution : 

“That the following article be proposed to the I.egis- 
latures of the several States as an amendment to the Con¬ 
stitution of the United States, which, when ratified by 
three-fourths of the said Legislatures, shall be valid as 
part of said Constitution, namely : 

“‘Article —. Representatives and direct taxes shall 
be apportioned among the several States which may be 
included within this Union according to their respective 


44 


JAMES G. BLAINE, 


numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each 
State, excluding Indians not taxed: Provided,, That 
whenever the elective franchise shall be denied or 
abridged in any State on account of race or color, all 
persons of such race or color shall be excluded from the 
basis of representation.’ ” 

Mr. Blaine addressed the House, detailing some objec¬ 
tions to the measure. He said : ‘‘While I shall vote for 
the proposition, I shall do so with some reluctance un¬ 
less it is amended, and I do not regret, therefore, that 
the previous question was not sustained. I am egotistic 
enough to believe that the phraseology of the original 
resolution, as introduced by. me, was better than that 
employed in the pending amendment. The phrase ‘ civil 
or political rights or privileges,’ which I employed, is 
broader and more comprehensive than the term ‘ elec¬ 
tive franchise,’ for I fear, with the gentleman from Illi¬ 
nois [Mr. Farnsworth], that under the latter phrase the 
most vicious evasions might be practised. As that gen¬ 
tleman has well said, they might make suffrage depend 
on ownership of fifty acres of land, and then prohibit 
any negro from holding real estate ; but no such mock¬ 
ery as this could be perpetrated under the provisions of 
the amendment as I originally submitted it.” 

In relation to taxation, Mr. Blaine remarked : “Now 
I contend that ordinary fair play—and certainly we can 
afford fair play where it does not cost anything—calls 
for this, namely, that if we exclude them from the basis 
of representation they should be excluded from the basis 


IN CONGRESS. 


45 


of taxation. Ever since this Government was founded, 
representation and taxation have gone hand in hand. If 
we shall exclude the principle in this amendment, we 
will be accused of a narrow, illiberal, mean-spirited, and 
money-grasping policy. More than that, we do not gain 
anything by it. What kind of taxation is distributed 
according to representation ? Direct taxation. • Now, we 
do not have any direct taxation. Inhere have been but 
twenty millions of direct taxation levied for the last fifty 
years. That tax was levied in i86i, and was not col¬ 
lected, but distributed among the States and held in the 
Treasury Department as an offset to the war claims of 
the States ; so that, as a matter of fact, we are putting 
an offensive discrimination in this proposition and gain¬ 
ing nothing for it except obloquy.” 

On July 12, 1867, Congress having under considera¬ 
tion the government of the insurrectionary States, he 
made a most important addition to the Fourteenth 
Amendment, which was generally discussed as “ Blaine’s 
Amendment ” and was finally adopted in substance. He 
said : 

“My purpose in taking the floor at tliis time is to say 
very briefly that whether amended or not I shall vote 
for this bill ; but at the same time to express the earn¬ 
est hope that it may be amended in one important 
feature. I hold in my hand a provision which I trust 
may be incorporated in it, and I appeal to my distin¬ 
guished and venerable friend from Pennsylvania [Mr. 
Stevens] to allow us at least the privilege of a vote upon 


46 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


it. I propose it as an additional section to the pending 
bill, and I ask the attention of the House while I read 
it, as follows: 

“‘Sec. —. And be it further enacted, that when the 
constitutional amendment proposed as article fourteenth 
by the Thirty-ninth Congress shall have become a part of 

V 

the Constitution of the United States by the ratification 
of three-fourths of \he States now represented in Con¬ 
gress, and when any one of the late so-called Confeder¬ 
ate States shall have given its assent to the same and con¬ 
formed its constitution and laws thereto in all respects; 
and when it shall have provided by its constitution that 
the elective franchise shall be enjoyed equally and im¬ 
partially by all male citizens of the United States, 
twenty-one years old and upward, without regard to 
race, color, or previous condition of servitude, except 
such as may be disfranchised for participating in the 
late rebellion ; and when said constitution shall have 
been submitted to the voters of said State, as thus de¬ 
fined, for ratification or rejection ; and when the consti¬ 
tution, if ratified by the popular vote, shall have been 
submitted to Congress for examination and approval, 
said State shall, if its constitution be approved by Con¬ 
gress, be declared entitled to representation in Congress, 
and Senators and Representatives shall be admitted 
therefrom on their taking the oath prescribed by law, 
and then and thereafter the preceding sections of this 
bill shall be inoperative in said State.’ 

“Now, I ask, what more does the bill passed to-day in 


IN' CONGRESS. 


47 


regard to the civil government of Louisiana demand of 
that State than this demands of all the States ? That 
applies to only one State ; you have said nothing of the 
kind to the other nine ; you propose no civil govern¬ 
ment for them. You do not know what may be the 
result of that bill. If you incorporate this amendment 
in this bill and send it to the Senate, whichever bill the 
Senate may adopt we shall have achieved something as 
a basis of reconstruction, and we bring Congress up to 
the declaration of making equal suffrage a condition 
precedent to admission. We have nev’^er done that yet, 
and for lack of that declaration we are weak before the 
country to-day. 

“ It happened, Mr. Speaker, possibly by mere accident, 
that I was the first member of this House who spoke 
in Committee of the Whole on the President’s message 
at the opening of this session. I then stated that I 
believed the true interpretation of the elections of 1866 
was that, in addition to the proposed constitutional 
amendment, universal, or at least impartial suffrage 
should be the basis of restoration. Why not declare it 
so ? Why not, when you send out this military police 
authority to the lately rebellious States, send with it that 
impressive declaration ? This amendment does not in 
the least conflict with the bill for the civil government 
of Louisiana which we passed to-day. It need not con¬ 
flict with any enabling act you may pass in regard to 
the other nine States. If you choose you may follow 
up this action at the opening of the Fortieth Congress 


48 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


by passing enabling acts for the other nine States. A 
declaration of this kind attached to this bill will, it 
seems to me, have great weight and peculiar signifi¬ 
cance. It announces to these States what it is im¬ 
portant for them to know, and what alone the Congress 
of the United States can authoritatively declare. 

“ In the first place, it specifically declares the doc¬ 
trine that three-fourths of the States represented in 
Congress have the power to adopt the constitutional 
amendment, and it does not even by implication give 
them to understand that their assent or ratification .is 
necessary to its becoming a part of the Constitution. 
It implies that their assent to it is a qualification for 
themselves ; merely an evidence, both moral and legal, 
of good faith and loyalty on their part. We specially 
provide against their drawing the slightest inference 
in favor of their being a party in any degree essential 
to the valid ratification of that amendment.” 

On the motion to strike Florida from the Reconstruc¬ 
tion bill he voted nav. In 1868 he voted for the bill 

m/ 

to continue the Bureau for the Relief of the Freedmen 
and Refugees. He favored the impeachment of Pres¬ 
ident Johnson. When Secretary Stanton was assailed 
by the party opposed to Reconstruction, he joined in 
Senator Edmunds’ vote of thanks and confidence to 
him. From the opening of the rebellion he had been 
the faithful champion of the Union on the floor of the 
House. When others doubted, he was hopeful ; when 
others failed, he was stanch ; and when the war was 


m CONGRESS. 


49 


ended, he was chief among those who strove by judi¬ 
cious and pacific measures to bind the broken Union 
together. 

The high position which Mr. Blaine had won in the 
House has been elsewhere touched upon, as well as his 
general popularity among his associates. They were 
now to give him the highest proof of their esteem. 

4 


SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE AND SENATOR. 


Mr. Blaine had served six years in Congress and was 
still a young man, having only reached the age of thirty- 
nine, when he was chosen. Speaker of the Plouse by a 
highly, complimentary vote, the ballot standing 57 for 
Mr. Michael C. Kerr, of Indiana, and 135 for Mr. Blaine. 
The new Speaker was accompanied to the chair by 
Messrs. Dawes and Kerr, and said : 

I 

“ Gentlemen of the House of Representatives : 

“ I thank you profoundly for the great honor which 
your votes have just conferred upon me. The gratifi¬ 
cation which this signal mark of your confidence brings 
to me finds its only drawback in the diffidence with 
which f assume the weighty duties devolved upon me. 

“ Succeeding to a chair made illustrious by the services 
of such eminent statesmen and skilled parliamentarians 
as Clay, and Stevenson, and Polk, and Winthrop, and 
Banks, and Grow, and Colfax, I may well distrust my 
ability to meet the just Expectations of those who have 


SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE AKD SEKATOR. 5 I 

m 

% 

shov^n me such marked partiality ; but relying, gentle¬ 
men, on my honest purpose to perform all my duties 
faithfully and fearlessly, and trusting in a large measure 
to the indulgence which I am sure you will always 
extend to me, I shall hope to retain, as I have secured, 
your confidence, your kindly aid, and your generous 
support.” 

Nothing that could be said of his public career would 
meet with readier assent from both his enemies and 
his friends than the statement that he was one of the 
best equipped men for the position who have sat in 
the Speaker’s chair. This, in the long space during 
which he presided over the deliberations of the House, 
was not denied on any hand, and even his Democratic 
opponents yielded their admiration to his discharge 
of the difficult duties of presiding officer, tiis least 
reasonable detractors have always admitted his eminent 
fitness for the post, and a writer in a newspaper, pro¬ 
fessedly opposed to Mr. Blaine, speaking after the 
nomination, says of his bearing as Speaker : ‘‘ His 
quickness, his thorougii knowledge of parliamentary 
law and of the rules, his firmness, clear voice, and im¬ 
pressive manner, his ready comprehension of subjects 
and situations, and his dash and brilliancy have been 
widely recognized, and really made him a great presid¬ 
ing officer.” And a contemporary account says : “ Mr. 
Speaker is really wonderful for despatch of business. 
Red tape is not to his notion, and he has an admirable 
faculty for cutting corners and knocking away obstruc- 


52 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


tions, so that the House may go by the most direct route 
to the end it is seeking.” Elsewhere it is added : “It 
has been said that no man since Clay’s speakership pre¬ 
sided with such an absolute knowledge of the rules of 
the House and with so great a mastery in the rapid, in¬ 
telligent, and faithful discharge of business. His knowl¬ 
edge of parliamentary law was instinctive and complete, 
and his administration of it so fair that both sides of the 
House united at the close of each Congress in cordial 
thanks for his impartiality.” 

The high place in the esteem of his associates which 
his labors in this office won him is best exhibited by 
the fact that he was re-elected without opposition from 
his own party Speaker of the XLIId and XLHId 
Congresses. This warm approval had its highest ex¬ 
pression, however, in a scene said to be without par¬ 
allel in the history of Congress. It occurred at the 
end of his third term as Speaker, when on March 5, 
1875, he brought the second session of the XLHId 
Congress to a close with the following brief address : 

“Gentlemen : I close with this hour a six-years’ ser_ 
vice as Speaker of the House of Representatives—a 
period surpassed in length by but two of my predeces¬ 
sors and equalled by only two others. The rapid muta¬ 
tions of personal and political fortune in this country 
have limited the great majority of those who have sat in 
this chair to shorter terms of office. 

“ It would be the gravest insensibility to the honors and 
responsibilities of life not to be deeply touched by so 


SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE AND SENATOR. 53 

signal a mark of public esteem as that which I have 
thrice received at the hands of my political associates. 
I desire in this last moment to renew to them, one and 
all, my thanks and my gratitude. 

“To those from whom I differ in my party relations— 
the minority in this House—I tender my acknowledg¬ 
ments for the generous courtesy with which they have 
treati)d me. By one of those sudden and decisive 
changes which distinguish popular institutions and 
which conspicuously mark a free people, that minority 
is transformed in the ensuing Congress to the governing 
power of the House.* However it might possibly have 
been under other circumstances, that event necessarily 
renders these words my farewell to the chair. 

“ The Speakership of the House of Representatives is 
a post of honor, of dignity, of power, of responsibility. 
Its duties are at once complex and continuous; they 
are both onerous and delicate ; they are performed in 
the broad light of day under the eye of the whole peo¬ 
ple, subject at all times to the closest observation, and 
always attended with the sharpest criticism. I think no 
other official is held to sucli rigid accountability. Par¬ 
liamentary rulings in their very nature are peremp¬ 
tory, almost absolute in authority and instantaneous in 
effect. They cannot always be enforced in sucli a way 
as to win applause or secure popularity, but 1 am sure 
that no man of any party who is worthy to fill this 
chair will ever see a dividing line between duty and 
- policy. 


54 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


“Thanking” you once more, and thanking you most 
cordially for the honorable testimonial you have placed 
on record to my credit, I perform my only remaining 
duty in declaring that the XLIIId Congress has reached 
its constitutional limit, and that the House of Repre¬ 
sentatives stands adjourned without day.” 

A newspaper of the day adds : “ As the Speaker closed 
his address and walked down from the chair, an .out¬ 
burst of hand clapping and cheers broke from the up¬ 
standing members, and was joined in by the immense 
assemblage on the floor and in the galleries. Never 
before was witnessed such a scene at the close of a 
Congress.” 

Mr. Blaine was not only technically an admirable 
presiding officer, but during the course of his adminis¬ 
tration, so far as consistent with his function, threw his 
weight in favor of economy, of hard money, and of clean 
public service. One of the most notable instances of 
this conscientious use of his office on its moral side 
was his refusal to accept the increased salary which the 
well-known Salary bill provided for the Speaker. Jan¬ 
uary 31, 1873, the House then considering the bill for 
the increase of the salary of the President, Congress¬ 
men, and others, the Speaker asked permission to make 
a personal statement and said : 

“ The Chair now desires to make a statement per¬ 
sonal to himself. In reading the bill the Chair pre¬ 
sumes the language of this amendment would make the 
Speaker’s salary |io,ooo for this Congress. The salary 


.S’/’Z'V/AVt/v’ OF THE HOUSE ANT) SENA TOE. 55 

of the Speaker, the last time the question of pay was 
under consideration, was adjusted to that of the Vice- 
President and members of the Cabinet. The Chair 
thinks that adjustment should not be disturbed, and the 
question which he now raises docs not affect the pay of 
other members of the House, lie asks unanimous 
consent to put in the word ‘hereafter,’ to follow the 
words ‘shall receive.’ This will affect whoever shall 
be speaker of the House of Representatives hereafter, 
and does not affect the speaker of this House, but 
leaves him upon the same plane with the Vice-President 
and Cabinet officers, upon the salary as before ad¬ 
justed.” 

To the Speaker’s proposition considerable opposition 
was manifested, but by his rulings Mr. Blaine sustained 
his intention. At the next session the bill was repealed 
in spite of the forces arrayed against it. The two sides 
were so evenly matched that wlicn a question of adjourn¬ 
ment arose, proposed to defeat the repeal, it was nega¬ 
tived by the deciding vote of the Speaker. 

When the democratic “tidal wave” of 1874 swept 
over the country, the Republicans lost their majority in 
the House and Mr. Blaine returned to the floor. The 
prestige won as Speaker gave him an especial eminence, 
and he added to his early reputation as a debater by his 
fresh and vigorous speeches. He was as before looked 
up to as the party leader in the House, and began to 
stand in the minds of Republicans far from Washington 
as among the foremost men of his political faith. His 


56 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


adroitness, his swiftness to take advantage of every 
point which could honestly help forward the measures 
which he urged, his dexterous exposure of the weakness 
of his opponent’s arguments, above all his assured com¬ 
mand of the principles of parliamentary law, rendered 
him one of the strongest among those who have led po¬ 
litical parties. 

Among the last measures urged by Mr. Blaine in the 
House was the adoption of the following amendment 
to the Constitution : 

“No State shall make any law respecting an estab¬ 
lishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise 
thereof ; and no money raised by taxation in any State 
for the support of public schools, or derived from any 
public fund therefor, nor any public lands devoted 
thereto, shall ever be under the control of any religious 
sect ; nor shall any money so raised or lands so de¬ 
voted be divided between religious sects or denomina¬ 
tions.” 

This was lost among several other amendments of 
different purport offered at the same time, among which 
was that providing that “ no person who has held, or 
may hereafter hold, the office of President shall ever 
again be eligible to said office.” 

At about the time this amendment was proposed he 
took occasion to write a strong letter in favor of it, 
which contains so sound an argument that the reader 
must be put into possession of it. Writing of the elec¬ 
tion in Ohio to a pi eminent citizen of that State he said : 


SrEAA'E/C OF 7'HE 770USE AND SENA TOE. S7 

“Augusta, Me., October 20, 1875. 

“ My Dear Sir : The public-school agitation in your 
late campaign is liable to break out elsewhere, and oc¬ 
curring first in one State and then in another, may keep 
the whole country in a ferment for years to come. This 
inevitably arouses sectarian feeling and leads to that 
bitterest and most deplorable of all strifes, the strife be¬ 
tween religious denominations. It seems to me that 
this question ought to be se*ttled in some definite and 
comprehensive way, and tlie only settlement that can be 
final is the complete victory for noii-sectarian schools. 1 
am sure this will be demanded by the American people 
at all hazards, and at any cost. 

“ The dread of sectarian legislation in this country has 
been felt many times in the past. It began very early. 
The first amendment to the Constitution, the joint pro¬ 
duction of Jefferson and Madison, proposed in 1789, de¬ 
clared that ‘ Congress shall make no law respecting an 
establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exer¬ 
cise thereof.’ At that time, when the powers of the Fed¬ 
eral Government were untried and developed, the fear 
was that Congress might be the source of danger to 
perfect religious liberty, and hence all power was taken 
away from it. At the same time the vStates were left 
free to do'as they pleased in regard to ‘ an establish¬ 
ment of religion,’ for the tenth amendment proposed 
by that eminent jurist, Theophilus Parsons, and adopted 
contemporaneously with the fust, declared that ‘all 
powers not delegated to the United States by the Con- 


58 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


stitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved 
to the States respectively, or to the people.’ 

“A majority of the people in any State in this Union 
can, therefore, if they desire it, have an established 
Churcli, under which the minority may be taxed for 
the erection of church-edifices which they never enter, 
and for the support of which they do not believe. This 
power was actually exercised in some of the States long 
after the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and, al¬ 
though there may be no positive danger of its revival 
in the future, tlie possibility of it should not be per¬ 
mitted. The auspicious time to guard against an evil 
is when all will unite in preventing it. 

“And in curing this constitutional defect all possi¬ 
bility of hurtful agitation on the school question should 
be ended also. Just let the old Jelferson-Madison amend¬ 
ment be applied to the States by adding the following 
to the inhibitory clauses in section lo, article i, of the 
Federal Constitution, viz. : 

“ ‘No State shall make any law respecting an establish¬ 
ment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise there¬ 
of ; and no money raised by taxation in any State, for , 
the support of the public schools or derived from any 
public fund therefor, shall ever be under the control of 
any religious sect, nor shall any money so raised ever 
be divided between religious sects or denominations.’ 

“ This, you will observe, does not interfere with any 
State having just such a school system as its citizens 
may prefer, subject to the single and simple restriction 


SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE AND SENATOR. 59 

that the schools shall not be made the arena for sec¬ 
tarian controversy or theological disputation. This ad¬ 
justment, it seems to me, would be comprehensive and 
conclusive, and would be fair alike to Protestant and 
Catholic, to Jew and Gentile, leaving the religious faith 
and the conscience of,every man free and unmolested. 

“ Very sincerely yours, J. G. BlaIxNE.” 

Lot M. Morrill, for many years Senator from Maine, 
resigned in June, 1876, to accept the portfolio of the 
Treasury, and the Governor of Maine immediately ap¬ 
pointed Mr. Blaine to fill the unexpired term. lie ac¬ 
cepted, July loth, and was duly installed, when he wrote 
to his constituents : 

“Beginning with 1862 you have, by continuous elec¬ 
tions, sent me as your representative to the Congress of 
the United States. For such marked confidence I have 
endeavored to return the most zealous and devoted ser¬ 
vice in my power, and it is certainly not without a feel¬ 
ing of pain that I now surrender a trust by which I 
have always felt so signally honored. It has been my 
boast, in public and in private, that no man on the door 
of Congress ever represented a constituency more ilistin- 
guished for intelligence, for patriotism, for public and 
personal virtue. The cordial support you have so uni¬ 
formly given me through these fourteen eventful years 
is the chief honor of my life. In closing the intimate 
relations I have so long held with tlie people of this 
district it is a great satisfaction to me to know that 


6o 


JAMES G. BLA/JVE. 


with returning health I shall enter upon a field of duty 
in which I can still serve them in common with the 
larger constituency of Avhich they form a part.” 

The Kennebec Journal says : 

“Fourteen years ago, standing in the convention at 
which he was first nominated, Mr. Blaine pledged him¬ 
self to use his best services for the district, and to sup¬ 
port, to the best of his ability, the policy of Abraham 
Lincoln to subdue the rebellion, and then and there ex¬ 
pressed plainly the idea that slaA^ery must and ought to 
be abolished to save the Union. That he has kept his 
pledge faithfully his constituents know and feel, and the 
records 6f Congress attest. To this district his abilities 
were freely given, and as he rose in honor in the House 
and in the public estimation he reflected honor and 
gave strength to the constituency that supported him. 
Every step he made in advance was a gain for them. 
It was a grand thing for this district to have as its Rep¬ 
resentative in Congress for six years the Speaker of the 
House, filling the place next in importance to that of 
President of the United States, with matchless ability. 
It was a grander thing when he took the lead of the 
minority in the House last December, routed the Dem¬ 
ocratic majority, and drove back in dismay the ex-Con- 
federates who were intending and expecting, througli 
the advantage they had already gained, to grasp the 
supreme power in the nation and wield it in the inter¬ 
est of the cause of secession and rebellion revived. For 
what he has done as their representative in Congress, 


SPEAKER OE THE HOUSE A HD SEHATOR. 6l 
never will this Third District of Maine forj^et to honor 

O 

the name of James G. Blaine. It will live in the hearts 
of this people even as the name of Henry Clay is still 
loved by the people of his old district in Kentuckv. 
His position in national affairs immediately gave him 
a place among his new associates not common for a 
young man, and he was presently one of the most 
prominent figures in the Senate. When the Legislature 
of Maine met the governor’s appointment was con¬ 
firmed, and when the question of Maine’s representa¬ 
tion in the Senate again came up he was chosen for the 
full term ending in 1883. His acts in the Senate are 
sufficiently set forth elsewhere. He spent five years as 
Senator, and only resigned his position in 1881 to ac¬ 
cept the portfolio of State in Garfield’s Cabinet.” 

EXTRA SESSION OF 1879 AND THE MAINE ELECTION. 

Within three weeks of the adjournment of the regu¬ 
lar session of Congress, March 4, 1879, the President, it 
will be remembered, called an extra session. A demo¬ 
cratic majority had attempted to starve the Executive 
into submission to their wishes byrefusing to make the 
usual appropriations for the support of the Govern¬ 
ment. It was an unprecedented act, though the lenders 
in it endeavored to find parallels for it. Legislative 
“ riders,” as they are called, were not new ; the incor¬ 
poration of legislation in appropriation bills was not 
unknown. But an attempt like this to force the compli¬ 
ance of the Executive was radically novel, and involved 


62 


JA’MES G. BLAINE, 


the most disastrous consequences. It was an occasion 
for decisive action, and the President lost no time in 
calling Congress back to the discharge of its neg¬ 
lected duty. Every department of the Government had 
been left without provision for its continuance. The 
money which kept them in motion and which Congress, 
after more or less debate upon the amount, had been ac¬ 
customed to appropriate to their maintenance from year 
to year was wanting, and there seemed nothing to do 
but to close the doors. 

. In this posture of affairs the President was in need of 
the ablest seconders of his policy in Congress—men who 
might rouse the Opposition to a sense of their puerile 
error. In the House several such men were found, but 
their leader was Garfield. In the Upper House the as¬ 
sault was led by Blaine. Day after day, with a company 
of staunch supporters, he exposed the folly of the De¬ 
mocracy. He arraigned them especially for their effort 
to use a false issue to carry through the measure on 
which they had conditioned the appropriations. The 
speech in \Vhich he summed up the charge against them 
is one of the most cogent and striking arguments which 
Mr. Blaine made in Congress, and so much of it as space 
can be spared for must be given here. 

The Senate having under consideration the bill (H. R., No. i) mak¬ 
ing appropriations for the support of the army for the fiscal year ending 
June 30, 1880, and for other purposes— 

Mr. Blaine said : 

“Mr. President: The existing section of the Revised Statutes num¬ 
bered 2002 reads thus : 



SPEAA^ER OF TITF HOUSE A HD SEHATOR. 63 

“No military or naval officer, or other person engaged in the civil, 
military, or naval service of the United States, shall order, bring, keep, 
or have under his authority or control any troops, or armed men, at the 
place where any general or special election is held in any State, unless 
it be necessary to repel the armed enemies of the United States, or to 
keep the peace at the polls. 

“ The object of the proposed section which has just been read at the 
Clerk’s desk, is to get rid of the eight closing words, ‘ or to keep the 
peace at the polls,’ and therefore the mode of legislation proposed in 
the Army bill now before the Senate is an unusual mode ; it is an extraor- 
diimry mode. If you want to take off a single sentence at the end of a 
section in the Revised Statutes, the ordinary way is to strike off those 
words ; but the mode chosen in this is to repeat and re-enact the whole 
section, leaving those few words out. While I do not wish to be need¬ 
lessly suspicious on a small jioint, I am quite persuaded that this did not 
happen by accident, but that it came by design. If I may so speak, it 
came of cunning, the intent being to create the impression that, whereas 
the Republicans in the administration of the General Government had 
been using troops right and left, hither and thither, in every direction, 
as soon as the Democrats got power they enacted this section. I can 
imagine democratic candidates for Congress all over the country read¬ 
ing this section to gaping and listening audiences as one of the first 
offsprings of democratic reform, whereas every word of it, every syllable 
of it, from its first to its last, is the enactment of a republican Con¬ 
gress. 

“ I repeat that this unusual form presents a dishonest issue, whether so 
intended or not. It presents the issue that, as soon as the Democrats 
got possession of the Federal Government they proceeded to enact the 
clause which is thus expressed. The law was passed by a republican 
Congress in 1865. There were forty-six Senators sitting in this cham¬ 
ber at that time, of whom only ten, or at most eleven, were Democrats. 
The House of Representatives was overwhelmingly republican. 

“We were in the midst of a war. The republican administration had 
a million, or possibly twelve hundred thousand, bayonets at its command, 
'rims circumstanced and thus surrounded, with the amplest possible 
power to interfere with elections had they so designed, with soldiers in 
every hamlet and county of the United States, the republican party 
themselves |)laced that jirovision on the statute-book, and Abraham 
Lincoln, their President, signed it. . . . 

“What then is the real motive underlying this movement ? Senators on 


64 


JAMES G, BLAINE, 


that side, democratic orators on the stump, cannot make any sensible set 
of men at the cross-roads believe that they are afraid of eleven hundred 
and fifty-five soldiers distributed one to each comity in the South. The 
moment you state that, everybody sees the utter, palpable, and laugh¬ 
able absurdity of it, and therefore we must go further and find a motive 
for all this cry. We want to find out, to use a familiar and vulgar 
phrase, what is ‘the cat under the meal.’ It is not the troops, that is 
evident. There are more troops by fifty per cent, scattered through the 
Northern States east of the Mississippi to-day than through the Southern 
States east of the Mississippi, and yet nobody in the North speaks of it ; 
everybody would be laughed at for speaking of it; and therefore the 
issue. I take no risk in stating, I make bold to declare, that this issue on 
the troops being a false one, being one without foundation, conceals 
the true issue, which is simply to get rid of the Federal presence at 
Federal elections, to get rid of the ciinlpower of the United States in 
the election of Representatives to the Congress of the United States. 
That is the whole of it, and disguise it as you may there is nothing else 
in it or of it. 

“You simply want to get rid of the supervision by the Federal Gov¬ 
ernment of the election of Representatives to Congress through civil 
means, and therefore this bill connects itself directly with another bill, 
and you cannot discuss this Military bill without discussing another bill 
which we had before us last \Yinter, known as the Legislative, Executive, 
and Judicial Appropriation bill. I am quite Avell aware, I profess to be 
as well aware as any one, that it is not permissible for me to discuss a 
bill that is pending before the other House ; I am quite well aware 
that propriety and parliamentary rule forbid that I should speak of what 
is done in the House of Representatives ; but I know very well that I 
am not forbidden to speak of that which is not done in the House of 
Representatives. I am quite free to speak of the things that are not 
done there, and therefore I am free to declare that neither this Military 
bill nor the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Appropriation bill ever 
emanated from any committee of the House of Representatives at 
all. They are not the work of any committee of the House of Represent¬ 
atives, and although^ the present House of Representatives is almost 
evenly balanced in party division, no solitary suggestion has been al¬ 
lowed to come from the minority of that House in regard to the shap¬ 
ing of these bills. Where do they come from? We are not left to 
infer ; we are not even left to the Yankee priyilege of guessing, because 
we know. The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Beck] obligingly told us 


SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE AKD SENATOR. 6 K 

—I have his exact words here—that ‘ the honorable Senator from 
Ohio [Mr. Thurman] was the chairman of a committee appointed by 
ilic Democratic party to see how it was best to present all these (|ues- 
tions before us.’ 

“We are told, too, rather a novel thing, that if we do not take these 
laws we are not to have the appropriations. I believe it has been an¬ 
nounced in both branches of Congress—I suppose on the authority of the 
Democratic caucus—that if we do not take these bills as they are planned 
we shall not have any of the appropriations that go with them. The hon¬ 
orable Senator from W'est Virginia [Mr. Hereford] told it to us on Fri¬ 
day ; the honorable Senator from Ohir5 [Mr. Thurman] told it to us last 
session ; the honorable Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Beck] told it to us at 
the same time, and T am not permitted to speak of the legions who told 
us so in the other House. They say all these appropriations are to be 
refused—not merely the army appropriation, for they do not stop at 
that. Look for a moment at the Legislative bill that came from the 
Democratic caucus. Here is an appropriation in it for defraying the ex¬ 
penses of the Supreme Court and the Circuit and District Courts of the 
United States, including the District of Columbia, etc., $2,800,000; 
‘ provided ’—provided what ? That the following sections of the Re¬ 
vised Statutes relating to elections [going on to recite them] be repealed. 

“ That is, you will pass an appropriation for the support of the judiciary 
of the United States only on condition of this repeal. W"e often speak 
of this Government being divided between three great departments, the 
executive, the legislative, and the judicial—co-ordinate, independent, 
equal. The legislative, under the control of a Democratic caucus, now 
steps forward and says : ‘We offer to the Executive this bill, and if he 
docs not sign it we are going to starve the judiciary.’ That is carrying 
the thing a little farther than I have ever known. Wc do not merely 
])urpose to starve the Executive if he will not sign the bill, but we pro¬ 
pose to starve the judiciary, that has had nothing whatever to do with 
the (piestion. That has been boldly avowed on this* floor ; that has 
been boldly avowed in the other House ; that has been boldly avowed 
in Democratic papers throughout the country. 

“ You say those lights shall all go out and not a dollar shall be appro¬ 
priated for the board if the President does not sign these bills. There 
are the mints of the United States at Philadelphia, New Orleans, Den¬ 
ver, San Francisco, coining silver and coining gold—not a dollar shall l)e 
appropriated for them unless the President signs these bills. There is the 
Patent Office, the patents issued which embody the inventions of the 

5 


66 


JAMES G, BLAINE. 




country—not a dollar for them. The Pension Bureau shall cease its op¬ 
erations unless these bills are signed, and patriotie soldiers may starve. 
The Agricultural Bureau, the Post-office Department—every one of the 
great executive functions of the Government is threatened—taken by 
the throat, highwayman style, collared on the highway, commanded to 
stand and deliver in the name of the Democratic Congressional caucus. 
Tliat is what it is ; simply that no committee of this Congress in either 
branch has ever recommended that legislation—not one. Simply a 
Democratic caucus has done it. . . . 

“ Some gentleman may rise and say : ‘ Do you call it a revolution to 
put an amendment on an appropriation bill ? ’ Of course not. There 
have been a great many amendments put on appropriation bills, some 
mischievous and some harmless ; but I call it the audacity of revolution 
for any Senator or Representative, or any caucus of Senators or Repre¬ 
sentatives, to get together and say : ‘ We will have this legislation or 
we will stop the great departments of the Government.’ That is revo¬ 
lutionary. I do not think it will amount to revolution ; my opinion is 
it will not. I think that is a revolution that will not go around ; I think 
that is a revolution which will not revolve ; I think that is a revolution 
whose wheel will not turn ; But it is a revolution if persisted in, and if 
not persisted in it must be baeked out from with ignominy. The Demo¬ 
cratic party in Congress have put themselves exactly in this position 
to-day, that if they go forward in the announced programme they march 
to revolution. I think they will in the end go back in an ignominious 
retreat. That is my judgment. 

“The extent to which they control the legislation of the country is 
worth pointing out. In round numbers, the Southeim people are about 
one-third of the population of the Union. I am not permitted to speak 
of the organization of the House of Representatives, but I can refer to 
tliat of the last House. In the last House of Representatives, of forty- 
two standing coi^imittees the South had twenty-five. I am not blaming 
the honorable Speaker for it. He was hedged in by partisan forces and 
could not avoid it. In this very Senate, out of thirty-four standing 
committees the South has twenty-two. I am not calling these things up 
just now in reproach. I am only showing what an admirable prophet 
the late Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy was, and how en¬ 
tirely true all his words have been, and how he has lived to see them 
realized. 

“ I do not profess to know, Mr. President—least of all Senators on this 
floor, certainly as little as any Senator on this floor, do I profess to 


SPEAKER OE TlfE HOUSE AND SENATOR. 6/ 


know what the President of the United States will do when these bills 
are presented to him, as I suppose in due course of time they will be. 
I certainly should never speak a solitaiy word of disrespect of the gen¬ 
tleman holding that exalted position, and I hope 1 should not speak a 
single word unbefitting the dignity of the office of a Senator of the United 
States. But as there has been speculation here and there on both sides 
as to what he would do, it seems to me that the dead heroes of the 
Union would rise from their graves if he shoiild consent to be intimidated 
and outraged in his proper constitutional powers by threats like these. 

The crisis which inspired this indictment of the Op¬ 
position was perhaps more serious than we are likely 
to remember, since it has safely passed. But that it is 
not put too strongly by Mr. Blaine is shown by the tone 
of newspaper comment, of public opinion, and of other 
speeches made at the time in Congress. Garfield, in the 
Lower House, said : “ I have no hope of being able to 
convey to the members of this House my own conviction 
of the very great gravity and solemnity of the crisis 
which this decision of the Chair and of the Committee 
of the Whole has brought upon this country. I wish I 
could be proved a false prophet in reference to the re¬ 
sult of this action. I wish thaUl could be overwhelmed 
with the proof that I am utterly mistaken in my views. 
But no view I have ever taken has entered more deeply 
and more seriously into my convictions than this : that 
this House has to-day resolved to enter upon a revolu¬ 
tion against the Constitution and Government of thq 
United States. ... I mean to say that the conse-. 
cpience of the programme just adopted, if persisted in, 
is nothing less than the total subversion of this Govern¬ 
ment.” 


68 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 

To this peril Mr. Blaine addressed himself. He felt 
its magnitude as deeply as Garfield did, and steadily 
built up, with the loyal co-operation of other Senators, 
a bulwark which the Democracy could not pass. When 
the danger through their labors was overcome, those 
who watched the momentous debate with patriotic un¬ 
derstanding, must have felt that they owed an especial 
debt to the men who had faithfully upheld the Constitu¬ 
tion through these weeks of trial. 

But Mr. Blaine’s services to his country and party, 
during this year, did not end here. The organized ef¬ 
forts of the Democrats of Maine to defraud the Repub¬ 
licans of their justly won victory in that State in 1879 is 
fresh in all minds, and its details need not be entered 
into here. The defeat of the Democrats was so unques¬ 
tioned that their opponents had held meetings in cele¬ 
bration of it, at one of which Mr. Blaine had been pres¬ 
ent and had made a congratulatory speech. The 
intelligence of the design of Governor Garcelon and 
his supporters to hold the State government at all haz¬ 
ards fell among the Republicans, who had elected their 
officers fairly and in due form, with an effect of startling 
surprise. In their amaze the monstrous attempt might 
have been carried out under their eyes if Mr. Blaine, 
with characteristic decision, had not placed hiraself at 
their head and set on foot active measures for the re- 
buke and discomfiture of the authors of this darino- at- 

to 

tempt to reverse the popular will. He made at once at 
his home in Augusta an indignant speech, in which he 


SPEAKER OE THE HOUSE AND SENATOR. 69 


denounced an undertaking which he justly said “ in- 
vited the reign of anarcliy.” To a meeting held in Gar¬ 
diner he wrote : 

“ . . . . Town government is the bulwark of New 

England’s strength, and it is the sanctity of town gov¬ 
ernment that has been outraged, the rights of town gov¬ 
ernments that have been destroyed. Thirty-seven mem¬ 
bers of the Legislature fairly and indisj^utably elected 
have been counted out, and in no one single instance 
did the governor and Council offer a hearing to the 
people’s elect whom they had determined to sacrifice. 
The dark deed was appropriately done in secrecy and 
stealth. Four or five who were threatened with dis¬ 
franchisement did, by urgent solicitation, secure the 
privilege of appearing before the star chamber council, 
but they felt and knew that they were talking to men 
who had prejudged their cause, men who had no ear for 
reason and no eye for light. Never before in the his¬ 
tory of Maine was a party in interest refused a full 
hearing before the governor and Council, and a full 
opportunity to examine the election returns. An accu¬ 
rate search into the records shows that in fifty-nine 
years there have beeir^just sixteen cases in which the 
£rovernor and Council ' found the official returns so 
fatally defective in form as to deprive a candidate ap¬ 
parently elected of his certificate, averaging one case in 
a little less than four years. Governor Garcelon and 
his Council find thirty-seven fatally defective returns in 
a single year, and by one of those providential dispen¬ 
sations or happy accidents, which only come to bless 


70 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


the just and encourage the righteous, every one of those 
thirty-seven fatally defective reforms was declared by 
a Democratic Council to exist in districts that had 
chosen Republican Senators or Representatives. 

“ They only claim that certain returns are defective on 
technical points, narrow and immaterial in themselves, 
and easily corrected under the laws of the State, and 
then they claim the right to set aside and disobey those 
laws. They hold towns accountable for not complying 
with the strictest letter and last exaction of one statute, 
and then defiantly proclaim the^ir right to nullify other 
statutes in the same book on the same subject. In other 
words, they claim that the statutes regulating the duty of 
town officers shall be fulfilled to the uttermost and minu¬ 
test point, while the statute prescribing the duty of tlie 
governor and Council may be set aside by a sort of plen¬ 
ary power of dispensation extended to them alone. . . . 

“For the first time in history the party defeated at the 
polls refuses to obey the popular decree, soils the rec¬ 
ord of the State with fraud, and invites the reign of an¬ 
archy. It is for the people whose will is defied to find 
their remedy and vindicate their sovereignty.” 

The measures which followed were directed by Mr. 
Blaine, and were decided but pacific. By his efforts an 
open conflict was averted, and in the end the Democrats 
were forced to yield their untenable position and to sur¬ 
render the State government to the rightfully elected 
officers. The result was due almost entirely to Mr. 
Blaine’s sagacious endeavors, and the people of Maine 
have not forgotten to be grateful to him for them. 


VIL 


THE CURRENCY. 


Mr. Blaine was opposed to the Bland Silver Bill as it 
passed both Houses and finally passed over the veto 
of the President. FI is position upon it was essentially 
that made known by I^resident Hayes in his annual 
message to Congress preceding the passage of the bill, 
and afterward in vetoing it. Mr. Blaine was not in 
favor of the bill, but as he saw it must pass, endeavored 
to better it by offering an amendment making the dol¬ 
lar 425 grains, and was earnest in his opposition to the 
dollar of 412;! grains. 

His arguments took the general ground of the injus¬ 
tice of coining a dollar of such weight—a weight, as 
is well known, worth at the time but ninety to ninety- 
two cents, as compared with the standard gold dollar 
—and making it a legal tender for debts contracted 
to be paid in dollars of one hundred cents. His re¬ 
marks upon the question were scattered through the 
debate, and were often made in (piestion or reply to 
other Senators. Certain of them are reproduced here 
witliout attempt to give them continuity :— 



72 


JAMES G, BLAINE. 


“ What I meant and what I answered the Senator from 
Michigan was this : That Senator was maintaining 
that, regardless of the weight of this dollar, the moral 
weight of this Government beneath it could float it. 
The Senator, when he comes to argue, refers to the ap¬ 
plication of money. If you owe a debt you have got to 
pay it; but does the Senator say that, however great the 
moral worth of this Senate or the moral worth of the 
nation that the Senate represents, it can throw that 
moral worth into the scales to throw up or weigh" down 
an indifferent or short dollar ? At what particular per¬ 
cent. in the dollar does the Senator put moral worth ? 
Is it eight or ten.? What is the component part, when 
you come to the one hundred cents that make up a 
dollar, that the moral worth of any nation gives 
it ? .... 

“ I should like to ask the honorable Senator a ques¬ 
tion before he sits down, because I would certainly take 
his judgment on a question of honor as quick as that of 
any man in the country. If the Senator had borrowed, 
at a very low rate of interest, |i0,000, and he asked the 
lender of the money to give it to him in gold coin, for 
he must have gold coin, and he got it because of his 
undoubted credit at a low rate of interest, and he onlv 
paid four or four and one-half per cent, interest on it, 
would he consider himself, as an honorable man, if by 
any action of any other body, governmental or corpo¬ 
rate, he was absolved from paying in as good as he 
got ? . . . 


THE CURRENCY. 


73 


“ Now, I say that the Senator (Thurman) has sat here 
for eight years and seen that go forward, and the Sena¬ 
tor from Ohio would put his right hand in the fire and 
lollow it with his left, and have them both burned off, be¬ 
fore he would start an agent in the field for himself to 
take from the farmers in Ohio gold coin, his agent rep¬ 
resenting all the time that they should be repaid in gold 
coin, and then turn around and say ; ‘ Why, my friend, 

there is not a word in my note about gold coin ; to be 
sure my authorized agent said so to you, to be sure I 
got it, and got its full value ; but when you come to read 
my note ’—like the small print in an insurance polic} 
that always covers the rascality undgr which the com¬ 
pany escapes its liabilities—‘ when you come to read my 
note, or when you come to read the Government note, 
there is not a word about paying you back in as good as 
you gave, and I am going to take advantage of it now to 
pay you back in a great deal less than you gave,’ The 
Senator from Ohio might stand here and protest, until 
to-morrow’s sun shone forth and set again, that he would 
not do it, and I would believe liinr; I know he would not 
do it ; he never would dishonor a name that stands as higli 
as his own, and. I only ask him to apply to tile faith and 
honor and credit of the Government the same measure 
that he applies to himself. Sir, all this discounting and 
dishonoring what the agents say, and endeavoring to 
show that they had no authority, is unworthy of being 
presented here, because if you give that argument its 
utmost scope and verge it only says that the Govern- 


74 


JAMES C. SLA/ATE. 


ment was not the buyer but simply the receiver of 
stolen goods. . . 

“Just now the Senator said lie would not vex his soul 
about what should be done thirty years hence. Here 
are ^280,000,000 that will be at your door three years 
hence. What are you going to do with it ? . . 

He [Mr. Howe] does not come square up and say that 
he, as a man holding in his hand a loan of ^10,000 which 
he exacted in coin, and because of his great credit got 
at four per cent, interest, will, if he from any cause has 
the power, evade under the law its full payment, and 
that he has no power to declare differently for himself, 
that the Government would feel justified in that great 
court which is above laws and above nations and above 
individuals, the Court of Honor.” 

In December, 1867, he made a striking speech on the 
finances, in which he said of Mr. Pendleton’s greenback 
theory : “ The remedy for our financial troubles will 

not be found in a superabundance of depreciated paper 
currency. It lies in the opposite direction, and the 
sooner the Nation finds itself on a specie basis the sooner 
will the public treasury be freed from embarrassment 
and private business be relieved from discouragement. 
Instead, therefore, of entering upon a reckless and 
boundless issue of legal-tenders, with their constant de¬ 
preciation, if not destruction, of value, let us set res¬ 
olutely to work and make those already in circulation 
equal to so many gold dollars.” 

But Mr. Blaine’s most solid and brilliant utterance on 


TITE CURREMCY. 


75 


the Currency was made in an elaborate speech in the 
House, February ii, 1876. This is too long for repro¬ 
duction here, but it is given in its main points in the 
Appendix, where it will be found extremely well worth 
perusal. 



VIII. 


THE TARIFF. 

t 

The biographer of Mr. Blaine has a brief story to tell 
of his course upon the tariff. He has not to follow him 
through windings of any sort, nor to record retreats or 
hesitations. His course from the beginning upon this 
important question has been consistent and straightfor¬ 
ward. He has not faltered from his entrance upon 
public life in the earnest belief that the collection of 
revenue from imports should be made to serve the 
double purpose of furnishing the national purse and of 
bringing into life national industries, while, once born, 
he would strengthen their hands. 

His sense of the need of protection as protection has 
been positive, and has not skulked in disguises of any' 
sort. This is not to say that he is blind to the inequal¬ 
ities of the tariff, or is insensible of the need of a gradual 
reduction of imports laid under the necessities of war. 
But it is not to be denied that he is opposed to the 
headlong zeal which expresses itself in ill-judged efforts 
to hastily overturn the slow-built safeguards of business 
and to shake commercial values. 


THE TARIFF. 


77 


If the history of Mr. Blaine’s course upon the tariff is 
brief, it is because it has felt but a single impulse behind 
it ; not because that impulse has failed to make itself 
abundantly known in his utterances. lie has announced 
his belief and urged the argument for the fostering of 
home industries by the tariff with unfailing energy 
and in no uncertain voice. The ambiguous attitude of 
the Democracy upon this issue in former Presidential 
campaigns has offered him a fruitful point of attack. 
Unconditionally Mr. Blaine is for American labor, and 
opposed to bringing into competition with it the ill- 
paid labor of Europe. Ilis has come to be the name 
which most surely stands for the theories bound up in 
the long and prosperous practice of the country, theo¬ 
ries which are summed up in the word ‘‘ protection.” 

Ilis position upon the tariff is not a mere following 
of party dictates. The doctrine which he maintains is a 
doctrine based upon knowledge and experience, and is 
dear to him as a personal conviction. His speeches on 
the floor of Congress, at polrtical meetings, and wherever 
his voice has been heard, have been distinguished even 
above his other speeches by their earnestness and sincer¬ 
ity, qualities which have not been a more conspicuous 
trait of any American public speaker. 

The chapter in his recently published volume dealing 
with this subject is strikingly impartial and weighs the 
opposing arguments with an even-handed scrupulousness, 
not to be expected of a man whose life-work has been of 
necessity ratiier that of an advocate than a judge. He 


78 JAMES G. BLAINE. 

compares the two systems currently known as free-trade 
and protection historically, going back to the founda¬ 
tions of the Government. The free-trade argument is 
stated no less amply tlian the theory of the protection¬ 
ists. The acts of both parties are balanced, and their 
results calmly stated. When the protectionists went too 
far, exa2:2:erated their function, Mr. Blaine sets it fairly 
down, and without prejudice makes the like record on 
tlie other side. Within its space the reader is not likely 
to find a more trustworthy account of this long contest 
between two honestly held principles. 

When he has completed the summary, in which he 
properly keeps the judicial attitude, he makes a brief 
statement of his conclusions, which is touched, as the 
best historical evidence is, witli the writer’s individual¬ 
ity. As is becoming, it does not make unmistakable an¬ 
nouncement of personal opinion ; but it is a setting forth 
of the case which will commend itself to the reasonable 
mind, and as such may be set down here : 

“ Strictly speaking,” he sji^'s,'^ “there has never been a 
proposition by any party in the United States for the 
adoption of free trade. To be entirely free, trade must 
encounter no obstruction in the way of tax, either upon 
export or import. In that sense no nation has ever en¬ 
joyed free trade as contradistinguislied from the theory 
of protection. England lias realized freedom of trade by 
taxing only that class of imports which meet no compe- 


* Twenty Years of Congress, p. 208. 



THE TARIFF. 


79 


tition in home production, thus excluding all pretence 
of favor or advantage to any of her domestic industries. 
Itngland came to this policy after having clogged and 
embarrassed trade for a long time by the most unrea¬ 
sonable and tyrannical restrictions, ruthlessly enforced, 
without regard to the interests or even the rights of 
others. She had more than four hundred acts of Par¬ 
liament regulating the tax on imports, under the old 
designations of ‘ tonnage and poundage,’ adjusted, as 
the phrase imports, to heavy and light commodities. 
Beyond these she had a cumbersome system of laws 
regulating, and in many cases prohibiting, the exporta¬ 
tion of articles which might teach to other nations the 
skill by which she had herself so marvellously prospered. 
When by long experiment and persistent effort England 
had carried her fabrics to perfection ; when by the large 
accumulation of wealth and the force of reserved capi¬ 
tal she could command facilities which poorer nations 
could not rival ; when by the talent of her inventors, 
developed under the stimulus of large reward, she had 
surpassed all other countries in the magnitude and effec¬ 
tiveness of her machinery she proclaimed free-trade, and 
j^ersuasively urged it upon all lands with which she 
had commercial intercourse. Maintaining the most 
arbitrary and most complicated system of protection as 
long as her statesmen considered that policy advanta¬ 
geous, she resorted to free trade only when she felt able 
to invade the domestic markets of other countries and 
undersell the fabrics produced by struggling artisans 


8o 


JAMES G. BLAIISfE. 


who were sustained by weaker capital and less advanced 
skill. So long as there was danger that her own marts 
might be invaded, and the products of her looms and 
forges undersold at home, she rigidly excluded the com¬ 
peting fabric and held her own market for her own 
wares. 

“ England was, however, neither consistent nor candid 
in her advocacy and establishment of free trade. She 
did not apply it to all departments of her enterprise, 
but only to those in which she felt confident that she 
could defy competition. Long after the triumph of 
free trade in manufactures as proclaimed in 1846, Eng¬ 
land continued to violate every principle of her own 
creed in the protection she extended to her navigation 
interests. She had nothing to fear from the United 
States in the domain of manufactures, and she therefore 
asked us to give her the unrestricted benefit of our 
markets in exchange for a similar privilege which she 
offered us in her market. But on the sea we were 
steadily gaining upon her, and in 1850-55 were nearly 
equal to her in aggregate tonnage. We could build 
wooden ships at less cost than England, and our ships 
excelled hers in speed. When steam began to compete 
with sail she saw her advantage. She could build en¬ 
gines at less cost than we, and when, soon afterward, her 
ship-builders began to construct the entire steamer of 
iron her advantages became evident to the whole world. 

“ England was not content, however, with the superior¬ 
ity which these circumstances gave to her. She did not 


THE TARIFF. 


8i 


wait for her whole theory of free trade to work out its 
legitimate results, but forthwith stimulated fhe growth 
of her steam marine by the most enormous bounties ever 
paid by any nation to any enterprise. To a single line 
of steamers running alternate weeks from Liverpool to 
Boston and New York, she paid $900,000 annually, and 
continued to pay at this extravagant rate for at least 
twenty years. In all channels of trade where steam 
could be employed she paid lavish subsidies, and liter¬ 
ally destroyed fair competition, and created for herself a 
practical monopoly in the building of iron steamers. Her 
course, in effect, is an exact repetition of that in regard 
to protection of manufactures, but as it is exhibited be¬ 
fore a new generation, the inconsistency is not so read¬ 
ily apprehended nor so keenly appreciated as it should be 
on this side of the Atlantic. Even now there is good 
reason for believing that many lines of English steamers, 

in their efforts to seize the trade to the exclusion of rivals, 

« 

are paid such extravagant rates for the carrying of let¬ 
ters as practically to amount to a bounty, thus confirm¬ 
ing to the present day (1884) the fact that no nation has 
ever been so persistently and jealously protective in her 
policy as England, so long as the stimulus of protection 
is needed to give her the command of trade. What is 
true of England is true in a greater or less degree of all 
other European nations. They have, each in turn, regu¬ 
lated the adoption of free trade by tlie ratio of their 
progress toward the point where they could overcome 
competition. In all thyse departments of trade where 


82 


JAMES G. BLAIME. 


competition could overcome them, they have been quick 
to interpose protective measures for the benefit of their 
own people. 

“The trade policy of the United States at the founda¬ 
tion of the Government had features of enlightened 
libelality which were unknown in any other country of 
the world. The new government was indeed as far in 
advance of European nations in the proper conception 
of liberal commerce as it was on questions relating to 
the chaiactei of African slave-trade. The colonists had 
experienced the oppression of the English laws which 
prohibited exports from the mothei: countrv of the verv 
articles which might advance their material interest and 
impiove their social condition. They now had the op- 
poitunit)*, as citizens of a free Republic, to show the 
generous breadth of their statesmanship, and they did 
so by providing in their Constitution, that Congress 
should nevei possess the power to levy ‘a tax or duty 
on articles exported from any State.’ At the same time 
trade was left absolutely free between all the States of 
the Union, no one of them being permitted to levy any 
tax on exports or imports beyond what might be neces¬ 
sary for its inspection laws. Still further to enforce this 
needful provision, the power to regulate commerce be¬ 
tween the States was given to the General Government. 

1 he effect of these provisions was to insure to the United 
States a freedom of trade beyond that enjoyed by any 
other nation. Fifty-five millions of American people 
(in 1884), over an area nearly as large as the entire con- 


THE TARIFF. 


83 


tinent of Europe, carry on their exchanges by ocean, by 
lake, by river, by rail, without the exactions of the tax- 
gatherer, without the detention of the custom-house, 
without the recognition of the State lines. In these great 
channels the domestic exchanges represent an annual 
value perhaps twenty-five times as great as the total of 
exports and imports. It is the enjoyment of free trade 
and protection at the same time which has contributed 
to the unexampled development and marvellous pros¬ 
perity of the United States. 

“ The essential question which has grown up between 
political parties in the United States respecting our 
foreign trade, is whether a duty shoidd be laid upon 
any import for the direct object of protecting and en¬ 
couraging the manufacture of the same article at home. 
The party opposed to this theory does not advocate 
the admission of the article free, but insists upon such 
rate of duty as will produce the largest revenue and at 
the same time afford what is termed ‘ incidental protec¬ 
tion.’ The advocates of actual free-trade according to 
the policy in England—taxing only those articles which 
arc not produced at home—are few in number and are 
principally confined to doctrinaires. The instincts of 
the masses of both parties are against them. But‘tlie 
nominal free-trader finds it very difficult to unite the 
largest revenue from any article with ‘ incidental protec¬ 
tion’ to the competing product at home. If the duty be 
so arranged as to produce the greatest amount of reve¬ 
nue, it must be placed at that point where the foreign 


84 


JAMES G. ELAIME. 


article is able to undersell the domestic article, and thus 
command the market to the exclusion of competition. 
This result goes beyond what the so-called American 
free-trader intends in practice, but not beyond what he 
implies in theory. 

“The American protectionist does not seek to evade 
the legitimate results of his theory. He starts with the 
proposition that whatever is manufactured at home 
gives work and wages to our own people, and that if 
tlie duty is even put so high as to prohibit the import 
of the foreign article, the competition of home pro¬ 
ducers will, according to the doctrine of Mr. Hamilton, 
rapidly reduce the price to the consumer. He gives 
numerous illustrations of articles which under the in¬ 
fluence of home competition have fallen in price below 
the point at which the foreign article was furnished 
when there was no protection. The free-trader replies 
that the fall in price has been still greater in the foreign 
market, and the protectionist rejoins that the reduc¬ 
tion was made to compete with the American product, 
and that the former price would probably have been 
maintained so long as the importer had the monopoly 
of our market. Thus our protective tariff reduced 
the’ price in both countries. This has notably been 
the result with respect to steel rails, the production of 
which in America has reached a magnitude surpassing 
that of England. Meanwhile rails have largely fallen 
in price to the consumer, the home manufacturer has 
disbursed countless millions of money among American 


TIIK TARIFF. 85 

laborers, and has added largely to our industrial inde¬ 
pendence and to the wealth of the country. 

“ While many fabrics have fallen to as low a price in 
the United States as elsewhere, it is not to be denied 
that articles of clothing and household use, metals and 
machinery, are on an average higher than in Europe. 
The difference is due in a large degree to the wages paid 
to labor, and thus the question of reducing the tariff 
carries with it the very serious problem of a reduction 
in the pay of the artisan and the operative. This in¬ 
volves so many grave considerations that no party is pre¬ 
pared to advocate it openly. Free-traders do not, and 
apparently dare not, face the plain truth—which is that 
the lowest-priced fabric means the lowest-priced labor. 
On this point protectionists are more frank than their 
opponents ; they realize that it constitutes indeed the 
most impregnable defence of their school. Free-traders 
have at times attempted to deny the truth of the state¬ 
ment, but every impartial investigation thus far has 
conclusively proved that labor is better paid, and the 
average condition of the working man more comfort¬ 
able in the United States than in any European coun- 
t ry. 

“An adjustment of the protective duty to the point 
which represents the average difference between wages 
of labor in Europe and in America, will, in the judg¬ 
ment of the protectionists, always prove impracticable. 
The difference cannot be regulated by a scale of aver¬ 
age.'^ because it is constantly subject to arbitrary changes. 


86 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


If the duty be adjusted on that basis for any given date, 
a reduction of wages would at once be enforced abroad, 
and the American manufacturer would in consequence 
be driven to the desperate choice of surrendering the 
home market or reducing the pay of workmen. The 
theory of protection is not answered, nor can its realiza¬ 
tion be attained by any such device. Protection, in the 
perfection of its design as described by Mr. Hamilton, 
does not invite competition from abroad, but is based 
on the controlling principle that competition at home 
will always prevent monopoly on the part of the capi¬ 
talist, assure good wages to the laborer, and defend the 
consumer against the evils of extortion.” 

This is a comprehensive statement of the facts, and 
must impress the reader as conceived in a spirit far re¬ 
moved from the narrow disposition Vhich supports par¬ 
tisan dogma at any cost—not partisan, Mr. Blaine’s 
adherence is to a system of protection broad enough to 
embrace something more than is meant by its opponents 
when they speak of manufacturers clamoring for assist¬ 
ance from the National Government. It includes, as 
Garfield’s wide-reaching idea did, nothing less than the 
highest well-being of every citizen, whatever his occu¬ 
pation. If Mr. Blaine’s thought of the system which 
he has so vigorously defended was of a scheme for the 
aid of a class, however large or influential, his fair mind 
would have no room for it. Protection to him, if. we 
have not misunderstood liim, means an encouragement 
to every form of labor to which the hand of man can 


THE TARIFF. 


87 


turn not less to agriculture than to manufacturinof, 
not more vigorous to the making of steel rails than tlie 
making of crops. A free, large, and stable inter-state 
commerce, independent of foreign markets, yet not pre¬ 
judicial to the development of the merchant marine, is, 
perhaps, the protectionist’s ideal, and possibly that may 
be left with the reader as a fair summary of Mr. Blaine’s 
theory of the most desirable form of national prosperity. 

In 1880, just before the election of Garfield, Mr. Blaine 
wrote to an inquiring Irishman ; 

“Augusta, Me., October 27, 1880. 

“ My Dear Sir : I received your friendly letter with 
much pleasure. Let me say in reply that the course of 
yourself and other Irish voters is one of the most extra¬ 
ordinary anomalies in our political history. Never, 
probably, since the execution of Robert Emmet has the 
feeling of Irishmen the world over been so bitter against 
England and Englishmen as it is at this hour. And yet 
the great mass of the Irish voters will, on Tuesday next, 
vote precisely as Englishmen would have them vote, 
for the interests of England. Having seen Ireland re¬ 
duced to misery, and driven to despair by what they re- 
gard as the unjust policy of England, the Irishmen of 
America use their suffrages as though they were the 
agents and servants of the English Tories. The free¬ 
traders of England desire nothing so much as the defeat 
of Garfield and the election of Hancock. They wish to 
break down the protective tariff and cripple our manu- 


88 


JAMES G. BLAJNE. 


factures, and nine-tenths of the Irish voters of this 
country respond with alacrity, “Yes, we will do your 
bidding and vote to please you, even though it reduce 
our own wages and take the bread from the mouths of 
our children.” There are many able men and many 
clever writers among the Irish in America, but I have 
never met any one of them able enough and clever 
enough to explain this anomaly on any basis of logic 
and good sense. I am glad to see from your esteemed 
favor that the subject is beginning to trouble you. The 
more you think of it the more you will be troubled, I 
am sure. And you will be driven finally to the conclu¬ 
sion that the prosperity of the Irish in this country de¬ 
pends as largely as that of any other class upon the 
maintenance of the financial and industrial policy rep¬ 
resented by the Republican party. , 

“Very truly yours, J. G. Blaine.” 

The following is extracted from a speech of Mr. 
Blaine upon protection at the opening of the perma¬ 
nent Exhibition at Philadelphia, May lo, 1878. 

“ Let us look at our actual condition and draw thence 
some instruction, which may silence partisan strife over 
questions of domestic economy. To those who doubt 
the development of home industries under the stim¬ 
ulus of protection to the American inventor and the 
American mechanic, I say, stand on this platform and 
look around you. Argument may well cease in the face 
of a positive demonstration. Clamorous contradiction 


THE TARIFF. 


89 


may well be silenced in ^the presence of an irrefutable 
conclusion. To those who think we need thevic:or and 
independence which free trade can impart, I say, Look 
abroad'over the domain of the United States of America 
inhabited by a population that will soon be fifty millions, 
with fifteen thousand miles of ocean fronton the Atlantic, 
the Gulf, the Pacific, and the Arctic ; with five great inte¬ 
rior seas, each more valuable than those waters for whose 
mastery European empires wage bloody and wasteful 
wars ; with rivers meeting our States in a network of 
inland navigation greater in extent than all the rivers 
of Europe combined ; with our railways joining lake to 
gulf and ocean to ocean ; and then remember and re¬ 
flect that on all our ocean coast, on all our interior seas, 
on all our rivers, over all our railroads, between all our 
States and with all,our Territories, trade is absolutely 
free for all American products without fetter, or duty, or 
charge, or fee, or any governmental tax whatever, na¬ 
tional, State or municipal ; and remember too that the 
great organic law of the land declares that it shall al¬ 
ways remain so. And I here assert that, enjoying as 
we have enjoyed, and as I hope we shall enjoy, the full 
benefit of protection to American industry against in¬ 
jurious competition from abroad, we have also enjoyed 
and do enjoy among ourselves the blessings of absolute 
free trade beyond that ever realized in the world else¬ 
where by so large a population, over so vast an extent 
of country. The aggregate of our domestic commerce 
is astounding in its figures. The vast importance of 



90 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


our foreign commerce is now exciting general interest 
and enlisting the attention of the whole country. It 
has grown so large that its total for a single year 
amounts to nearly $1,200,000,000, and its importance 
cannot be over-estimated. But compared with our 
domestic commerce, it is absolutely insignificant in 
amount. The traffic by railroad* alone in this country 
is estimated to be sixteen times as large as the whole of 
our foreign commerce, and when you add to that the 
commerce of lake and river and canal, you have an ag¬ 
gregate of domestic exchanges that amounts to twenty- 
five times as much as the foreign commerce, including 
the exports and imports. 

“ And thus it is, Mr. President, that the system of ab¬ 
solute free trade among ourselves, and of production 
with respect to foreign nations, has created and developed 
those great industries, whose richest and ripest fruits 
we see around us here to-day. I congratulate you on 
the auspicious results of your energy and your enter¬ 
prise, and I predict with confidence that your labors 
will be amply repaid by the increased trade of your 
great and growing and patriotic city, and repaid again 
by the intelligent gratitude of that great mass of the 
Arnerican people who know and who feel that the coun¬ 
try is always happiest and most prosperous when labor 
is honorably employed and amply compensated at 
home.” 

During 1878 he was also present at a demonstration 
made at Chester, Pa., against a bill then before Con- 


THE TARIFF. 


91 

gress which proposed the reduction of duties. He said 
—and this may fitly close our chapter ; 


GOVERNMENT AID TO FOREIGN SHIPS. 

“When we contemplate this condition of affairs the 
doctrinaire' of free trade steps forvyard with his ready 
suggestion and says : ‘ Give us free ships and we will at 
once establish steamship lines between our ports and 
Europe.’ The genuine free-trader never believes that 
anything can be produced in this country as cheap or 
as good as it can be found abroad, and if you offer him 
for $68 currency per ton a steamship built on the Dela¬ 
ware he will try to persuade you that one built on 
Clyde for ^14 per ton is a vast deal cheaper, t^^ough the 
American iron used in our steamsl^ip-'’ is admitted to be 
of better quality than that employed in the English 
yards. But if you gratify the whim of the free-trader 
and permit American registers to underlie and the 
American flag to float over any ship, wherever built, 
what have you gained ? Can you run these lines on the 
basis of free trade against the English and French lines 
that are aided and upheld by their governments ? 

AMERICA’S POSSIBILITIES. 

“ If our country were for a few persistent years of like 
mind with Great Britain and France on this great com¬ 
mercial question, you would find all over the land great 
shipyards springing up to supply the demand for the 


92 , JAMES G. BLAINE. 

Steam marine of America. When we had a fair chance 
and equal terms our sailing vessels gained on Great 
Britain until, for the last ten years before the outbreak 
of the Rebellion, we were abreast if not ahead of her in 
aggregate tonnage ; and on equal footing we should 
soon do the same in our steam marine. But with Ens^- 
land and France aiding their lines with mail contracts 
to drive other lines from the sea it is, idle to enter the 
race. A very small amount comparatively would enable 
us to become the victors in the struggle for ocean 
supremacy. What it costs us to support two regiments 
of cavalry or maintain five large men-of-war could give 
us lines of first-class American steamships to foreign 
portq^ from at least six of our principal commercial ports. 
We stana in the position to be the first commercial na¬ 
tion in the world. Alone of all the great Powers we 
have a vast frontage on the two oceans whose waters 
bound all the continent and float the commerce that 
civilizes and enriches the world. Our coast line is 
longei than that ^vhich borders Europe | our harbors 
are more numerous and capacious than those of all our 
maritime rivals combined. Nature has given us the po¬ 
sition and the power to lead the commercial world. 
Shall we use our opportunity or abandon the field to 
those who have not a tittle of our advantage ? If we 
can only regain the proportion of our commerce which 
we held in 1856, the profit to our people will be more 
than $100,000,000 per annum. Shall we go forward or 
shall we continue to retreat ? ” 


IX. 


AMERICAN SIHPPING. 

The attitude of Mr. Blaine upon foreign commerce 
is not a doubtful one. It has frequently been made 
known ; but it is perhaps most fully expressed in the 
admirable speech in response to a toast at the annual 
dinner of the New York Chamber of Commerce, May 13, 
1879. It is a concise statement, backed by an array of 
figures and a solidity of argument that takes it out of 
the amiably light class of after-dinner speeches and 
makes it worth reproduction here. 

Mr. Blaine said: 

You will permit me to say, speaking as an outsider, to the Chamber 
of Commerce, and coming as I do from a commercial State, that com¬ 
merce as well as religion needs a revival in this country. Every other 
interest in this country for the last fifteen years, even including the year 
1866-67, a year of doubt and depression, has been gathering strength and 
is ready to march forward to victory, save only the commerce of the 
country. Now I suppose that figures are familiar to you, gentlemen, 
but the figures of American commerce, in its decline, are startling. 
Twenty years ago, of the tonnage engaged in the foreign trade of the 
United States fully three-fourths was American tonnage. Of the 
tonnage engaged in the foreign trade of the United States to-day not 
one-fourth is American. In 1856-57 Great Britain, the leading com- 


94 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


mercial nation of the world, had only 950,000 tons engaged in trade be¬ 
tween the United States and that kingdom. She has 5? 200,000 tons 
now. Germany then had but 160,000 tons. She has 950,000 tons 
now. Norway and Sweden twenty years ago had in trade between this 
country and their own but 20,000 tons. Last year’s reports show that 
she had 850,000 tons. Even Austria, penned up with a limited sea¬ 
board as she is, had in commerce with us, twenty years ago, not a ves¬ 
sel of her own ; but last year she had no less than 220,000 tons. And I 
might go on thus through the whole list. 

In this mighty increase of commerce, from 4,400,000 to over 10,000,- 
000 tons in a single year, the United States has gone backward, and all 
the vast profit of this trade Ijas gone into the coffers of other nations. 
Let me ask of you here what other interests have gone backward in 
that period. Have manufactures ? They have outstripped imagina¬ 
tion. Has agriculture ? It has gone ahead of every calculation. 
Has internal commerce? Why, we have increased from 30,000 to 
68,000 miles of railroads, and the Government of the United States, 
besides giving sixty millions in money, has given to internal commerce 
over 200,000,000 acres of the public domain—more than New York, New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Maryland combined. And meantime 
she has protected by tariff every article that. the American artisan and 
the American capitalist would invest in the manufacture of. But for the 
foreign commerce of this country what has she done ? Left it to the 
alien and the stranger, and in the last ten years the value of the prod¬ 
ucts carried between this country and foreign countries has exceeded 
$11,000,000,000 a year, out of the carrying of which somebody has 
made $110,000,000 per annum—a sum far larger than the public debt. 
And who has made this money? France, England, Germany—every¬ 
body excepting the United States. Think of it! $110,000,000, in gold 
coin, has gone out of the commerce of this country into the commerce 
of other countries. Can New York stand this ? Can this great port 
sustain such loss as this, with all her unbounded advantages of position 
and resources, and with the magnificent continental commerce that 
stands behind her ? I say, gentlemen, that if the carrying trade of this 
country, aggregating $110,000,000, is permanently turned from us, then 
the question of specie payments becomes one of far more complicated 
difficulty than it is to-day, and the only way to make that question easier 
of solution is to turn that current of gold from those coffers into our 
own. I said just now that I have come from a commercial State ; but 
our State is a State that flourishes with fleets of sailing ships, and the day 


AMEA'/CAiV SHIPPING. 95 

of sailing vessels in commerce is over. The North Atlantic commerce 
is in the hands of the steamships to-day, and of this your own commerce, 
from your own port of New York, represents at least 2,000 vessels 
of 1,000 tons each, and it is all in the hands of Europeans. An old 
ship captain was once telling me of the value of commerce. He was 
one of those wise, thrifty captains of the old time, who owned a sliarc 
of his vessel himself, and some of you, doubtless, have met a few of liis 
class. lie said, “People don’t understand this commercial question. 
I once took a load of coal from Cardiff to Valparaiso, and I got consid¬ 
erable more for carrying it than the coal was worth. Then I took back 
a cargo of guano from the Chinchas, and,. I was paid more for carrying 
that than the cargo was worth ; and so I made more out of the wind 
and waves than these merchants did with all their risk and shrewd¬ 
ness.” And this is what commerce does. 

But since that time great changes have taken place in the methods of 
commerce, and great changes are going on to-day. I.ord Beaconsfield 
has said that in the last ten years the loss to the landed estates of 
Creat Britain has amounted to ;({^8,cx)0,ooo sterling. Now this great 
loss is easily accounted for, if we look for it. It is a result of the prog¬ 
ress made in the means and facilities of cheap transportation. To-day 
you can put a barrel of flour or a bushel of wheat from Chicago into 
Liverpool at a cheaper rate than you could bring it ten years ago from 
Buffalo to New York. With this cheap rate for freights, therefore, the 
great landed estates of England, that are rented at £2 to £2 los. per 
acre, cannot pretend to compete with products that are raised on lands 
the fee-simple of which is not half so much as the annual rental of 
the English lands. In view of these facts, I say we are destined to 
feed the world, because we can do it cheaper than anybody else can do 
it. We are, in fact, doing that to-day, and yet we are weekly losing 
the opportunity to reap those vast profits that come from the carrying 
trade of our own products. There is no reason why this should be so. 
There are persons here, I dare say, that can remember when Clinton's 
Ditch (the Erie Canal) had the water let into it. Nobody appears will¬ 
ing, I see, to acknowledge such antiquity! [A voice—“Yes, yes, 
here ! ”J Well, you all probably have heard of it. Why, the tonnage 
from New York to Buffalo was $85 a ton the year before that “ditch ” 
was opened, but it fell to $9 a ton a year afterward. That was con¬ 
sidered a marvel. And yet that is more than it is to-day from the far 
Northwest, from Minneapolis to the principal ports of Europe., 

There is nothing that we have not done in this country to encourage 


96 


JAMES G. EGA EVE. 


railroad building. We have gone wild on that. We have built them 
where they were needed, and we have built them where they were not 
needed. We have built those that paid well with much doubt and 
blind distrust ; and we have rushed with blind confidence into the 
building of roads that, after they were built, didn’t pay a penny. In 
this multiplication of lines of transportation we have brought all our 
vast national products to the seaboard, and think that that is the end of 
the line. We have reaped the products of it so far, and then are will¬ 
ing to let foreigners have the rest of it. Why, it is one continuous route 
from Chicago to Liverpool; but we take 1,000 miles and give 3,000 
miles to the foreigner, and that is the way we are dividing our carrying 
trade. Why should we not carry it across the sea if they can make a 
profit in doing it ? 

As I said at the outset of my somewhat rambling remarks, if you ad¬ 
dressed this toast to me, it is to remind me that all my adjurations and 
declarations up to this time have been futile. If you intend it as a 
declaration of the Chamber of Commerce, that its influence and re¬ 
sources, and the influence of the vast forces of our country, are to be 
used in the effort for a revival of American commerce, you may ccmsider 
the thing is accomplished. “If it is possible, it is done already. If it 
is impossible, you will see that it is done.” You can apply the Talley¬ 
rand motto to this question. Vozi can do it, and no other power in this 
country can do it. I am not here, of course, to invoke any controversy 
on this matter, but I am here to say that thus far, so far as bur legisla¬ 
tion is concerned, the influence of New York has not been felt in that 
direction. When you get ready to exert it let us hear from you by tele¬ 
graph. When the old lady was training her son for the trapeze, the 
boy made three or four rather ineffectual efforts to get over the bar. 
Then she was heard to suggest, “John Henry Hobbs, if you’ll just 
throw your heart over them bars your body will follow.” And so it is 
with you. If New York will throw her heart into this matter the rest 
will follow, and then we shall have the commercial, manufacturing, and 
agricultural interests of our country going forward hand in hand, as they 
should go, mutually supporting each other. I know that there is a dif¬ 
ference of opinion as to the means by which this is to be accomplished. 
One man says, “Tear down your navigation laws, and let us have free 
ships.” Now I am opposed to that, because that does not tend to 
build up American commerce. I don’t believe in false trade-marks. 
I don’t believe that buying a British ship, and calling her an American 
ship, makes her an American ship. I believe that this very day and 


AMEKICAIV SHIPPING. 


97 


hour every single article that goes into the manufacture of a ship can 
be produced and made as well here as in any spot on this earth. Now, 
you make a $500,000 ship, representing a tonnage of say 3,500 tons. 
Five thousand dollars represent the cost of the original raw material, 
and $495,000 represents the value of the labor and skill to be put on 
those materials by American hands. I say that I am opposed to pay¬ 
ing that $495,000 outside of this country. Just so long as this country 
fails to become, or delays its arrival at the position of a great and tri¬ 
umphant commercial nation, just so long it is defeating the ends of 
Providence. We have 17,000 miles of coast line, looking toward 
Europe, Asia, and Africa, giving us a larger sea frontage than all Europe, 
beginning at Archangel and running to the pillars of Hercules, and be¬ 
yond them to the gates of Trebizond. Ralph Waldo Emerson has 
said that England was great, because she had the best business stand 
on the globe. That was perhaps once true. But it is true no longer. 
To-day the best business stand is changed, and it is to be found in the 
United States, and your great imperial city, with its matchless com¬ 
mercial connections and position, and its magnificent harbor, is destined 
to be, under the guidance of its merchants, what London has dreamed 
of, but never yet has realized. 

At another time,in answer to a question in the House, 
he made clear the ground upon which protectionists 
stand in regard to American shipping. 

Mr. Allison said : “I want my friend from Maine to 
tell us why they ask for free trade in ship-building, and 
insist upon protection for every other branch of manu¬ 
facturing industry ? ” 

Mr. Blaine : “ I will answer the gentleman in a word, 
that the shipping interest is differently situated. When 
you built a ship for flie commerce of the world, you 
send it abroad to compete with every other ship in 
every other country. You are unable by your laws to 
give her any protection or to prevent the greatest com¬ 
petition from every other nation in the world. When 
7 


98 


JAMES C. BLAINE. 


you protect your manufactures at home by laying a 
duty upon the same manufactures of other countries, 
why, sir, you shut out the entire competition of the 
world. If you levy an internal revenue tax on our 
manufactures here, you at the same time raise the tariff 
duty in order that the internal tax may not depress the 
home manufactures or give an advantage to the foreign 
article. You raise the tariff in order that you may shut 
out foreign competition. If the gentleman from Iowa 
cannot see the difference between a vessel launched . 
and that departs for foreign ports not deriving any ben¬ 
efit from our laws, and which has to compete with all 
the other nations of the world—if he cannot see the dif¬ 
ference between that and the manufactures which are 
protected, by a high class of duties, he must then con¬ 
clude that his logic is false. 

“ I say further, Mr. Speaker, that I object entirely to 
this being considered a bounty to the ship-builder. I 
object utterly to it. I deny it. I deny that it is a 
bounty. I say that all the ship-builders ask is to be re¬ 
lieved from their burdens. There is a wide distinction 
in the logic and the statement of the case. You find 
no protection to these ships. If I build a ship on the 
banks of the Kennebec, send her to Liverpool, and she 
meets a ship from the banks of'the St. John, or from 
any other part of the world, now what protection do 
your laws give her over the foreign ship ? What protec¬ 
tion do you give her ? Not the slightest in the world.” 

Speaking again in the House (February ii, 1876) 


AMER/CAN SHIPPING. 


99 


upon the currency and the relation of paper money to 
the shipping interest he said : “One great and leading 
interest of my own and other States has suffered, still 
suffers, and will continue to suffer as long as the cur¬ 
rency is of irredeemable paper. I mean the ship-build¬ 
ing and navigation interest—one that does more for the 
country and asks less of it than any other except the 
agricultural ; an interest that represents our distinctive 
nationality upon all seas and in all climes ; an interest 
more intensely and essentially American than any others 
that fall under the legislative power of the Government, 
and which asks only to-day to be left where the found¬ 
ers of the Republic placed it one hundred years ago. 
Give us the same basis of currency that our great com¬ 
petitors of the British empire enjoy, and we will, within 
the lifetime of those living, float a larger tonnage under 
the American flag than was ever enrolled by one nation¬ 
ality since the science of navigation has been known 
among men. Ay! more. Sir : give as the specie basis 
and the merchant marine of America, sailing into all 
zones and gathering gain in all continents, will bring 
back to our shores its golden profits and supply to us 
that coin which will steady our system and offset the 
drains that weaken us in other directions. But ships 
built on the paper basis cannot compete with the lower- 
priced ones of the gold basis, and whoever advocates a 
perpetuity of paper money in this country confesses his 
readiness and willingness to sacrifice the navigation 
and commercial interests for all time. 


100 


JAMES G. BLATNE. 


It would be an unpardonable weakness in our people 
—always heroic when heroism is demanded—to doubt 
their own capacity to maintain specie payment. I am 
not willing myself to acknowledge that as a people we 
are less honorable, less courageous, or less competent 
than were our ancestors in 1790 ; still less am I ready 
to own that the people of the entire Union have not the 
pluck -and the capacity of our friends 'and kinsmen in 
California ; and* last of all, would I confess that the 
United States of America, with 44,000,000 of inhabitants, 
with a territory surpassing all Europe in area, and, I 
might almost say, all the world in fertility of resources, 
are not able to do what a handful of British subjects, 
scattered from Cape Race to Vancouver’s Island, can do 
so easily, so steadily, and so successfully.” 



X. 

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

There has been some rather foolish talk about Mr. 
Blaine’s position on the question of Civil Service Re¬ 
form. It is founded in part upon an ignorance or for¬ 
getfulness of certain facts, the most important of which 
is that he was not a member of Congress when the 
Civil Service rules which are now operating so admira¬ 
bly were adopted, and was not in a position to publicly 
make known his ideas upon the subject. But they were 
already sufficiently announced, and, to those who con¬ 
cerned themselves about the matter, were well under¬ 
stood. 

When the discussion arose in its earlier forms he 
was in Congress, and recorded himself unmistakably 
upon the issue, going so far as to himself propose an 
amendment to a civil service bill. The Mouse having 
under consideration a law prohibiting contributions to 
election funds by persons employed in the Government 
service, Mr. Blaine offered an amendment making the 
provisions of the bill more rigorous, by including in its 


102 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


scope Senators, Representatives, and Delegates in Con¬ 
gress. The amendment was carried. In speaking for 
it he said incidentally : 

I desire to congratulate the House upon the formal 
surrender, if I may use that word, of that extreme doc¬ 
trine of State rights which the other side of the chamber 
have for many years held, in regard to the power of the 
General Government in any way to regulate elections in 
the States. It has been the function and, as they con¬ 
sidered it, the duty of the Republican party in Congress 
to pass certain enactments, designed to enforce purity 
and fairness in elections. They have usually been very 
strenuously resisted by our friends on the other side, on 
the ground that the National Government had no power 
whatever to interfere with or to control elections in the 
States. 

“ This bill proposes to go down into the States and to 
the counties, and to make it a penal offence, punishable 
in the courts of the United States, for any officers to con¬ 
tribute any money toward even a county election. I 
think it a very suggestive, and to me it is a very grati¬ 
fying, circumstance, that the Committee on the Judiciary 
of this House, composed of very able gentlemen, a large * 
majority of them Democrats, and the chairman a States- 
rights Democrat, have reported—and, as I understand it, 
unanimously—a bill proposing to regulate elections in 
States and counties. Now this, Mr. Speaker, I regard 
as a very significant circumstance in the political history 
of the times ; and it is a very gratifying circumstance. 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 


103 


because from it we may feel assured that the Democratic 
party will unite with the Republican party in all meas¬ 
ures necessary to secure purity and fairness and equality 
of elections throughout the United States. It was very 
well remarked yesterday by the gentleman from Massa¬ 
chusetts (Mr. Hoar), who oifered an amendment to this 
bill, that the worst form of government in the world to 
live under is a government of the people, when the 
majority is bribed ; and he stated very well that there 
was only one thing worse than the bribing of voters, and 
that was the fraudulent count of the votes after they 
were deposited in the ballot-box.” 

No one, it may parenthetically be said, has been more 
strenuous and constant in endeavors for the purity of 
the ballot—the first need of a republic and a thing 
without which reform in the civil service would be an 
idle after-thought—than Mr. Blaine. His constant 
watchfulness for the sacred rights of the voter is a mat¬ 
ter as to which no reader of the political history of the 
last twenty years can well be doubtful. Every phase 
of the subject has at some time been touched by him, 
and the pages of the Congressional Record are filled witli 
his vigorous words upon it. 

The question of tenure of office, as well as that of polit¬ 
ical contributions by office-holders, has been considered 
by Mr. Blaine, and the following statement of the 
ground taken by him on this point, made by Harper s 
Weekly, September 23, 1882, is as fair a presentation of 
it as could be asked : 


104 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


‘‘ The speeches of Mr. Blaine in Maine and of Senator 
Harrison in Indiana, with the brief arid unmistakable 
order of Mayor Low in Brooklyn, relieving every em- 
pToye of all fear of the local Hubbell, and the signifi¬ 
cant declaration of more than a thousand leading citi¬ 
zens of Massachusetts of all parties that they will vote 
for no Representative in Congress whose character and 
record do not promise an earnest and aggressive action 
for reform, are all unmistakable signs of a public con¬ 
viction and purpose which will certainly have their way. 
. . . Mr. Blaine pronounced plainly for some kind 

of reform, and Mr. Blaine said in detail that he should 
be glad to see every Federal officer, however honorable 
his position, appointed for a specific term, during which 
he could not be removed, except for cause, to be speci¬ 
fied, proved, and recorded, and for subordinate officers 
he thought that seven years would be a proper term of 
office.” 

He spoke from an administrative experience then, as 
he did a short time before, when, in eulogizing the dead 
President, he said : 

“In the beginning of his Presidential life Garfield’s 
experience did not yield him pleasure or satisfaction. 
The duties that engross so large a portion of the Presi¬ 
dent’s time were distasteful .to him, and were unfavor¬ 
ably contrasted with his legislative work. ‘ I have 
been dealing all these years with ideas,’ he impatiently 
exclaimed one day, ‘ and here I am dealing only with 
persons. I have been heretofore treating of the funda- 



CIVIL SERVICE REE ORAL IO5 

mental principles of government, and here I am consid¬ 
ering all day whether A or B shall be appointed to this 
or that office.’ He was earnestly seeking some practi¬ 
cal way of correcting the evils arising from the distribu¬ 
tion of overgrown and unwieldy patronage—evils al¬ 
ways appreciated and often discussed by him, but whose 
magnitude had been deeply impressed upon his mind 
since his accession to the Presidency. Had he lived, a 
comprehensive improvement in the mode of appoint¬ 
ment and in the tenure of office would have been pro¬ 
posed by him, and with the aid of Congress no doubt 
perfected.” 

As Secretary of State he, as well as General Garfield, 
had been beset by office-seekers. The impatient excla¬ 
mation of the President may fairly be believed to have 
been not less that of the head of his Cabinet, and surely 
that officer, intimate in his councils, had a share in form¬ 
ing the plan which the President intended submitting 
to Congress. 


THE AMNESTY BILL. 


One of the matters as to which Mr. Blaine was most 
zealous during his last year in the House, was in his 
opposition to granting amnesty to Jefferson Davis, 
Mr. Randall introduced in the House, December 15, 
1875, what is known as the Amnesty Bill, removing the 
political disabilities imposed by the third section of 
the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution. On 
January 6, 1876, Mr. Blaine obtained consent to have 
printed the following amendment, and gave notice that 
he would offer it as an amendment to this bill the suc¬ 
ceeding Monday : 

“ Be it efiacted, etc.^ That all persons now under the 
disabilities imposed by the fourteenth amendment to 
the Constitution of the United States, with the excep¬ 
tion of Jefferson Davis, late president of the so-called 
Confederate States, shall be relieved of such disabilities 
on their appearing before any judge of a United States 
court, and taking and subscribing in open court the 
following oath, to be duly attested and recorded, namely : 


THE AMNESTY BILL 


107 


I, A. B., do solemnly swear, or affirm, that I will support 
and defend the Constitution of the United States aeainst 
all enemies, foreign and domestic ; and that I will bear 
true faith and allegiance to the same ; that I take this 
obligation freely, without any mental reservation or pur¬ 
pose of evasion ; and that, to the best of my knowl¬ 
edge and ability, I will well and faithfully discharge 
the duties of a citizen of the United States.” 

It is not possible to print here all that Mr. Blaine 
said in support of his amendment, but it will be as well 
to make the reader acquainted with some parts of it. 

“ Every time,” declared he, “that the question of am¬ 
nesty has been brought before the House by a gentleman 
on that side (the Democratic) for the last two Congresses, 
it has been done with a certain flourish of magnanimity 
which is an imputation on this side of the House, as 
though the Republican party, which has been in cliarge 
of the Government for the last twelve or fourteen years, 
had been bigoted, narrow, and illiberal—as though cer¬ 
tain very worthy and deserving gentlemen in the South¬ 
ern States were ground down to-day under a great 
tyranny and oppression from which the hard-heartedness 
of this side of the House cannot possibly be prevailed 
upon to relieve them. 

“ If I may anticipate as much wisdom as ought to char¬ 
acterize that side of the House, this may be the last 
time that amnesty will be discussed in the American 
Congress. 1 therefore desire, and under the rules of 
the House, with no thanks to that side for the privilege. 


io8 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


to place on record just what the Republican party has 
done in this matter. I wish to place it there as an im¬ 
perishable record of liberality and large-mindedness 
and magnanimity and mercy far beyond any that has 
ever been shown before in the world’s history by con¬ 
queror to conquered. 

“ With the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Randall) 
I entered this Congress in the midst of the hot flame of 

war, when the Union was rocking to its foundations, 

* 

and no man knew whether we were to have a country or 
not. I think the gentleman from Pennsylvania would 
have been surprised when he and I were novices in the 
XXXVIIIth Congress, if he could have foreseen, before 
our joint service ended, we should have seen sixty-one 
gentlemen, then in arms against us, admitted to equal 
privileges with ourselves, and all by the grace and mag¬ 
nanimity of the Republican party. When the war 
ended, according to the universal usage of nations, the 
Government, then under the exclusive control of the 
Republican party, had the right to determine what 
should be the political status of the people w'ho had been 
defeated in war. Did we inaugurate any measures of 
persecution ? Did we set forth on a career of blood¬ 
shed and vengeance ? Did we take property ? Did w^e 
prohibit any man all his civil rights ? Did we take 
from him the right he enjoys to-day, to vote ? 

“ Not at all. But instead of a general and sweeping 
condemnation the Republican party placed in the four¬ 
teenth amendment to the Constitution only this exclu- 


7'HE AMNESl'Y BILL. IO 9 

sion ; after considering tlie whole subject, it ended in 
simply coming down to this : 

“ ‘ That no person shall be a Senator or Representative 
in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, 
or hold any office, civil or military, under the United 
States, or under any State, who, having previously taken 
an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of , 
the United States, or as a member of any State Legisla¬ 
ture, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State 
to support the Constitution of the United States, shall 
have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the 
same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. 
But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House 
remove such disability.’ 

“It has been variously estimated that this section at 
the time of its original insertion in the Constitution in¬ 
cluded somewhere from fourteen to thirty thousand 
persons ; as nearly as I can gather together the facts of 
the case, it included about eighteen thousand men in 
the South. It let go every man of the hundreds of 
thousands—or millions, if you please—who had been 
engaged in the attempt to destroy this Government, 
and only held those under disability who, in addition to 
revolting, had violated a special and peculiar and per¬ 
sonal oath to support the Constitution of the United 
States. It was limited to that. 

“Well, that disability was hardly placed upon the 
South until we began in this Hall, and in the other wing 
of the Capitol, Congress then being more than two- 


I lO 


JAMES G. BLAIME. 


thirds Republican in both branches, to remit it, and the 
very first bill took that disability off from 1,578 citizens 
of the South ; and the next bill took it off from 3,526 
gentlemen—by wholesale. Many of the gentlemen on 
this floor came in for grace and amnesty in those two 
bills. After these bills specifying individuals had passed, 
and others, of smaller numbers, which I will not recount, 

the Congress of the United States in 1872, by two-thirds 
of both branches, still being two-thirds Republican, 
passed this general law : 

“ ‘ That all political disabilities imposed by the third section of the 
fourteenth article of amendments of the Constitution of the United 
States, are hereby removed from all persons whomsoever, except Sen¬ 
ators and Representatives of the XXXVIth and XXXVIIth Congresses, 
officers in the judicial, military, and naval services of the United States, 
heads of Departments, and foreign ministers of the United States.’ 

“Since that act passed a very considerable number of 
the gentlemen which it left under disability have been 
relieved specially, by name, in separate acts. But I be¬ 
lieve, Mr. Speaker,, in no single instance since the act 
of May 22, 1872, have the disabilities been taken from 
any man except upon his respectful petition to the 
Congress of the United States that they should be re¬ 
moved. And I believe in no instance, except one, have 
they been refused upon the petition being presented. 
I believe in no instance, except one, has there been any 
other than a unanimous vote. . . . 

“There is no proposition here to punish Jetferson 
Davis. Nobody is seeking to do it. That time has 


THE AMNESTY BILL. KI 

gone by. The statute of limitations, common feelings 
of humanity, will supervene for his benefit. But what 
you wish us to do is to declare, by a vote of two-thirds 
of both branches of Congress, that we consider Mr. Davis 
worthy to fill the highest offices in the United States if 
he can get a constituency to endorse him. He is a 
voter ; he can buy and he can sell ; he can go and he 
can come. He is as free as any man in the United 
States. There is a long list of subordinate offices to 
which he is eligible. This bill proposes, in view of that 
record, that Mr. Davis, by a two-thirds vote of the Sen¬ 
ate and a two-thirds vote of the House, be declared 
eligible and worthy to fill any office up to the Presi¬ 
dency of the United States.” 


XII. 


AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP. A ^ 

■% 

Mr. Blaine has always been distinguished for his virile 
Americanism ; but he has never taken a firmer or more . 
creditable stand than that which he assumed in regard ; 
to English arrests of naturalized Americans in 1867-8-9. 
The principles for which he in common with other Con- '' 
gressmen contested was a highly important one, and 
England, after several years of hesitation .and resistance, 
granted the position fully. It consisted in the affirma- ■ 
tion that a naturalized citizen of the United States was " 
entitled to the same treatment abroad which would be i 
accorded a native American. England urged the an- j 
cient principle of the common law. This held that it 
was impossible for one born under the sovereignty of 
England to disclaim allegiance to her. Once an Eng- ^ 
lishman one was always an Englishman. The occasion ■ 
of the protest made by Mr. Blaine and others was the 
arrest in England of Burke, Warren, Costello, and other 
naturalized Irish-Americans, for concern in Fenian plots. 1 




A MERIC A yV CITIZENSHIP. 


1^3 

This, says a writer in Lalor’s Political Encyclopaedia, in 
the course of an impartial discussion of these cases, ^‘was 
the signal for a loud outcry against Mr. Adams, our 
minister at London, for his alleged failure to exert him¬ 
self actively in behalf of men who were engaged in un¬ 
questionably seditions proceedings, and who sought to 
use their certificates of naturalization to protect them 
against the law of the land whose provisions they were 
openly violating. The course pursued by Mr. Adams, 
like that recently followed by Mr. Lowell, was wholly in 
accordance with the .usual practice of our Government, 
and received the unqualified endorsement of the State 
Department. He was firm to insist upon the thoroughly 
American principle, that a naturalized American should 
be treated upon the same footing as a native-born sub¬ 
ject of the United States ; at the same time he was too 
much of a statesman not to know that one who violates 
the law of the land, whether he be a subject or an alien, 
cannot claim exemption from the penalty ; and he was 
too much of a diplomate not to foresee that an attempt to 
oppose the principle of territorial sovereignty, without 
being able to show that the law whose enforcement was 
protested against was abhorrent to the customs of civil¬ 
ized nations, would only involve the mortifying result of 
})lacing his government in a position which ultimately 
they would be forced to abandon. So far from displa}'- 
ing an un-American weakness in yielding to foreign ag¬ 
gression, his attitude was a model of loyal firmness and 

diplomatic tact. Ilis representations to the British Eor- 
8 


JAMES G. BLAINE, 


114 

eign Secretary, backed by the sanction of judicial prece¬ 
dent and international practice, showed clearly enough 
that he would be firm in resisting any encroachments 
upon the rights of American citizens, as such, while at 
the same time he avoided even the appearance of an un,- 
generous and irritating insistence upon purely abstract 
principles.” 

It was in Costello’s case that Mr. Blaine was espe¬ 
cially active. .This man had been arrested while in Ire¬ 
land in 1867, and tried for a speech made in 1865, as an 
American citizen, in New York: The speech was 
deemed treasonable by the British Government, and 
Costello was tried upon this charge. He was convicted 
under the act of 1848, which made especial declaration 
of England’s right to punish British-born subjects for 
words or acts of treason spoken or done in a foreign 
land. The prisoner was sentenced to sixteen years 
penal servitude. His plea of American citizenship was 
disregarded upon the ground that no treaty obligation 
could be alleged against the Act, claiming as a British 
subject a man native to British soil. 

When Costello was removed to Millbank prison, Mr. 
Blaine urged the question upon the attention of Con¬ 
gress, and mainly by his efforts Costello and other like 
prisoners who were naturalized Americans were set at 
liberty. The agitation resulted in the treaty of 1870, in 
which Great Britain yielded the point, and entirely 
abandoned the doctrine of a perpetual allegiance. It 
was a signal victory won upon a point of the most vital 


AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP, II5 

moment to all Americans by adoption. It is to Mr. 
Blaine’s advocacy that naturalized citizens owe the 
precious immunity guaranteed as to England by the 
treaty, and maintained in relation to other countries as a 
principle growing out of it. 


XIII. 


THE CHINESE QUESTION. 

In the record of Mr. Blaine’s term of service as Sen- 
-ator his position upon the Chinese^Ijuestion must have 
separate attention. His speech when a bill was first 
proposed in Congress limiting Chinese immigration 
was the subject of much discussion at the time ; it won 
him a wide popularity on the Pacific coast, and among 
those who think with him it has always been held one of 
the most complete and admirable statements of their 
view which has been made public. 

The opposition to the Chinese in California first took 
vigorous form in 1877. Some violence accompanied 
the expression of the sentiment against them, in which 
Dennis Kearny, an Irish agitator, was the leader. The 
people of San Francisco elected a clergyman named 
Kalloch mayor when the question was submitted to the 
ballot. Mayor Kalloch was adverse to the immigration 
of the Chinese, and an effort was made to prevent it 
through a constitutional amendment which readily pass¬ 
ed the legislature, and at the polls received the approval 
of voters of all classes. The higher courts, however, did 


THE CHINESE QUESTION. 


II7 

not uphold the amendment, and the people of the Pacific 
coast at length sought relief in Congress. The bill 
which was introduced restricted the number of Chinese 
passengers on incoming vessels to fifteen. Said Mr. 
Blaine, in the Senate, February 14, 1879 • 

“ It seems to me that if we adopt as a permanent poli¬ 
cy the free immigration of those who by overwhelming 
votes in both branches of Congress we say shall forever 
remain political and social pariahs in a great free 
government, we have introduced an element that we 
cannot handle. You cannot stop where we are ; you are- 
compelled to do one of two things, either exclude the 
immigration of Chinese or include them in the great 
family of citizens. 

“ The argument is often put forward that there is no 
particular danger of numbers coming here ; that it is 
not a practical question, and I would ask the honorable 
Senator from Ohio, if the number should mount up in¬ 
to the millions what would be his view then ? r 3 id it 
ever occur to my honorable friend that the vast myriads 
of millions almost as you might call them, the incalcu¬ 
lable hordes in China, are much nearer to the Pacific 
coast of the United States in point of money and pas¬ 
sage, in point of expense of reaching it, than the people 
of Kansas. A man in Shanghai or Hong-Kong can be 
delivered in San Francisco more cheaply than a ma’n in 
Omaha now. I do not speak of the Atlantic coast, where 
the population is still more dense ; but you may take the 
Mississippi Valley, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


118 

Missouri, all the great commonwealths of that valley, 
and they are, in point of expense, further off from the 
Pacific slope than the vast hordes in China and Japan. 

“I am told by those who are familiar with the com¬ 
mercial affairs of the Pacific side that a person can be 
sent from any of the great Chinese ports to San Fran¬ 
cisco for something over ^30, I suppose in an emi¬ 
grant train over the Pacific Railroad from Omaha, not 
to speak of the expense of reaching Omaha, but from 
that point alone, it will cost $50 a head, and that would 
be cheap railroad fare as things go in this country. So 
that in point of practicability—in point of getting there— 
the Chinaman of to-day has an advantage over an Amer¬ 
ican laborer in any part of the country, except in the 
case of those who are already on the Pacific coast. 

“ Ought we to exclude them ? The question lies in my 
mind thus : Either the Anglo-Saxon race will possess the 
Pacific coast, or the Mongolians will possess it. You 
give them the start to-day, with the keen thrust of ne¬ 
cessity behind them, and with the ease of transpor¬ 
tation before them, with the inducements to come 
while we are filling up the other portions of the conti¬ 
nent, and it is entirely inevitable, if not demonstrable, 
that they will occupy that great space of country be¬ 
tween the Sierras and the Pacific coast. They are them¬ 
selves to-day establishing steamship lines, they are them¬ 
selves to day providing the means of transportation ; 
and when gentlemen say that we admit from all other 
countries, where do you find tlie slightest parallel .? 


TTFE CrriNESF. QUESTIO.V. 


II9 

And in a republic especially, in any government that 
maintains itself, the unit of order and of administra¬ 
tion is in the family. The immigrants that come to us 
from all portions ,of the British isles, from Germany, 
from Sweden, from Norway, from Denmark, from 
France, from Spain, from Italy, come here with the 
idea of the family as such engraven on their minds and 
in their customs and in their habits as we have it. The 
Asiatic cannot go on with our popidation and make a 
homogeneous element. The idea of comparing Euro¬ 
pean immigration with an immigration that has no re¬ 
gard to family, that does not recognize the relation of 
husband and wife, that does not observe the tie of par¬ 
ent and child, that does not have in the slightest degree 
the ennobling and civilizing influences of the hearth¬ 
stone and the fireside! Why, when gentlemen talk 
loosely about-immigration from European states as con¬ 
trasted with that, they certainly are forgetting history 
and forgetting themselves. 

“ We must contemplate the fact that with the ordinary 
immigration that is going on now, if the statistics given 
by the honorable Senator from California are correct, 
you are going to have very soon a large majority of the 
male adults of California non-voters ; and with the Re¬ 
public organized as it is to-day, I make bold to de¬ 
clare that you cannot maintain a non-voting class in 
this country. It was a necessity to give the negro suf¬ 
frage. Abused as it has been in tlie South, curtailed 
unfairly, it is still the shield and defence of that race •, 



120 


JAMES G. £ LA EVE. 


and with all its imperfections, and all its abuses, and all 
its shortcoming’s, either by reason of his own ignorance 
or by the tyranny of others, the suffrage of the negro 
has wrought out, or has pointed the way by which shall 
be wrought out, his political and personal salvation. 

“The Senator from Ohio made light of race troubles. 
I supposed if there was any part of the world where a 
man would not make light of race troubles, it was here. 

I supposed if there was any people in the world that 
had a race trouble on hand, it was ourselves. I sup^ 
posed that if the admonitions of our own history were 
anything to us, we should regard the race trouble as the 
one thing to be dreaded, and the one thing to be avoided. 
We are not through with it yet. It cost us a great many 
lives ; it cost us a great many million of treasure. Does 
any man feel that we are safely through with it now? 
Does any man here to-day assume that we have so en¬ 
tirely solved ' and so satisfactorily settled on a perma¬ 
nent basis all the troubles growing out of the negro 

V 

race trouble that we are prepared to invite another 
one? If so, he views history different from myself. If 
any gentleman, looking into the future of his country 
sees, for certain sections of it at least, peace and good 
order and absolute freedom from any trouble growing 
out of race, he sees with more sanguine eyes than mine. 
With this trouble upon us here, not by our fault, to de¬ 
liberately sit down and invite another and far more seri¬ 
ous trouble seems to be the very recklessness of states¬ 
manship. 


THE ClflKESE QUEST TOM. 


121 


“Treat them like Christians, my friend says ; and yet 
I believe that the Christian testimony from the Pacific 
coast is tliat the conversion of the Chinese on that basis 
is a fearful failure ; that tlie demoralization of the white 
by reason of the contact is much more rapid tlian the sal¬ 
vation of the Chinese race, and that up to this time there 
has been no progress whatever made. I think I heard 
tlie honorable Senator from California, who sits on this 
side of the chamber (Mr. Booth), say that there was not, 
as we understand it, in all the one hundred and twenty 
thousand Chinese, more or less (whether I state the 
number aright or not does not matter), there did not ex¬ 
ist among the whole of them the relation of family. 
There is not a peasant’s cottage inhabited by a China¬ 
man ; there is not a hearth-stone, in tlie sense we under¬ 
stand it, of an American home, or an English home, or 
a German home, or a French home. There is not a do¬ 
mestic fireside in that sense ; and yet you say that it is en¬ 
tirely safe to sit down here and permit that to grow up 
in our country. If it were a question of fifty years ago, 
I admit with my colleague that it would not be practica¬ 
ble. IMcans of communication, ease of access, cheap¬ 
ness of transportation, have changed the issue and forced 
upon our attention a crisis in it. I am always disposed 
to take each Senator’s statement about his own State. 
If I should make a statement about my State, or my col¬ 
league, who knows more about it, should make a state- 
ment about Maine, I should not feel very well to have 
it doulited by other Senators. I undertake to believe 


122 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


at least that if the Congress of the United States should 
decide adversely, in effect confirming the treaty and 
the status of immigration as it now is, you cannot main¬ 
tain law and order in California without the interposi- . 
tion of the military five years hence. 

“ I do not justify the brutality of the treatment of the 
Chinese who are here. It is greatly to be regretted ; it 
is greatly to be condemned ; but you must deal with 
- things as you find them. If you foresee a conflict, I think 
it is a good deal cheaper and more direct way to avoid 
the trouble by preventing the immigration. 

“ I have heard a great deal about their cheap labor. 

I do not myself believe in cheap labor. I do not be¬ 
lieve that cheap labor should be an object of legislation, 
and it will not be in a republic. You cannot have the 
wealthy classes in a republic where the suffrage is uni¬ 
versal legislate for cheap labor. I undertake fo repeat 
that. I say that you cannot have the wealthy classes 
in a republic where suffrage is universal legislate in the 
interest of cheap labor. Labor should not be cheap, 
and it should not be dear ; it should have its share, and 
it will have its share. There is not a laborer on the 
Pacific coast to-day, I say that to my honorable col¬ 
leagues—whose whole life has been consistent and uni¬ 
form in defence and advocacy of the interests of the 
laboring classes—there is not a laboring man on the 
Pacific coast to day, who does not feel wounded and 
grieved and crushed by the competition that comes from 
this source. Then the answer is, ‘Well, are not Ameri- 


77//i Cni/VESE QUESTION’. 


123 


can laborers equal to Chinese laborers ? ’ I answer 
that question by asking another : Were not free white 
laborers equal to African slaves in the Soutli ? When 
you tell me that the Chinaman driving out the free 
American laborer only proves the superiority of the 
Chinaman, I ask you did tlie African slave labor driv¬ 
ing out the free white labor from the South prove the 
superiority of slave labor ? The conditions are not un¬ 
like, the parallel is not complete and yet it is a parallel. 
It is servile labor ; it is not free labor such as we intend 
to develop and encourage and build up in this country. 
It is labor that comes here under a mortgage. It is 
labor that comes here to subsist on what the American 
laborer cannot subsist on. You cannot work a man 
who must have beef and bread, and would prefer beer, 
alongside of a man who can live on rice. It cannot be 
done. In all such conflicts and in all such struggles the 
result is not to bring up the man who lives on rice to 
the beef-and-brcad standard, but it is to bring down the 
beef-and-bread man to the rice standard. Slave labor 
degraded free labor ; it took out its respectability ; it 
put an odious caste on it. It throttled the prosperity of 
a fine and fair portion of the United States ; and a 
worse than slave labor will throttle and impair the pros¬ 
perity of a still finer and fairer section of the United 
States. We can choose here to-day whether our legis¬ 
lation shall be in the interest of the American free la¬ 
borer or for the servile laborer from China.” 

Mr. Blaine’s powerful speech has not been given 


124 JAMES G. BLAINE. 

entire, but enough is reproduced to exhibit the tenor 
of his argument. 

The bill whose passage he urged secured the ap¬ 
proval of both Houses of Congress but was vetoed by 
President Hayes, it being to his sense a violation of 
treaty obligations. The effort against the Chinese was 
renewed at the session of 1881-2, and the bill this time 
introduced was much more rigorous in its provisions, 
absolutely prohibiting all immigration of Chinese and 
coolie laborers for twenty years. The author of the 
bill, Senator John F. Miller, made a strong speech in 
favor of it and it passed both houses. Mr. Blaine was 
not then in the Senate. 


XIV. 


SLANDER. 

These pages need not be burdened with a defence of 
Mr. Blaine against the accusations of political enemies. 
They were disposed of long agp, and if a renewal of the 
complete answers which have been made to them should 
be desired it will doubtless be readily furnished from 
other sources. But without some statement of the 
charges and ‘Mr. Blaine’s refutation of them this could 
not offer itself as a full history of his life. They must 
therefore be glanced at briefly. 

The story of them is set forth in the Congressional 
Record from Mr. Blaine’s mouth, and nothing better can 
be done than to reproduce it here. On April 24, 1876, 
he said in the House of Representatives : 

“ Mr. Speaker, with the leave of the House so kindly 
granted, I shall proceed to submit certain facts and cor¬ 
rect certain errors personal to myself. The dates of 
the correspondence embraced in my statement will show 
that it was impossible for me to make it earlier. I shall 
be as brief as the circumstances will permit. For somg 





126 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


months past a charge against me has been circulating 
in private—and was recently made public—designing 
to show that I had in some indirect manner received the 
large sum of $64,000 from the Union Pacific Railroad 
Company in 1871—for what services or for wdiat purpose 
has never been stated. The alleged proofs of the seri¬ 
ous accusation was based, according to the original 
story, upon the authorship of E. H. Rollins, treasurer 
of the Union Pacific company, who, it was averred, had 
full knowledge that I got the money, and also upon the 
authority of Morton, Bliss & Company, bankers of New 
York, through whom the draft for $64,000 was said to 
have been negotiated for,my benefit, as they confidently 
knew. Hearing of this charge some weeks in advance 
of its publication, I procured the following statement 
from the two principal witnesses, who were quoted as 
having such definite knowledge against me : 

“ ‘ Union Pacific Railroad Company, 

“ ‘ Boston, March 31, 1876. 

‘‘ ‘Dear Sir : In response to your inquiry, I beg leave 
to state that I have been treasurer of the Union Pacific 
Railroad Company since April 8, 1871, and have neces¬ 
sarily known of all disbursements made since that date. 
During the entire period up to the present time I am 
sure that no money has been paid in any way or to any 
person by the company in which you were interested in 
any manner whatever. I make the statement in justice 
to the company, to you, and to myself. 

“ ‘Very respectfully yours, 

“ ‘ E. H. Rollins. 


“ ‘ Hon. James G. Blaine.’ 


SLA A 7 )EA\ 


127 


“ ‘ New York, April 6, 1876. 

“ ‘ Dear Sir : In answer to your inquiry we beg to sav 
that no draft, note, or check, or other evidence of value 
has passed through our books in which you were known 
or supposed to have any interest of any kind, direct or 
indirect. 

“‘We remain, very respectfully, your obedient ser¬ 
vants, Morton, Bliss & Co. 

“ ‘ Hon. James G. Blaine, 

“ ‘ Washington, D. C.’ 

“ Some persons on reading the letter of Morton, Bliss 
& Co. said that its denial seemed to be confined to any 
payment that had passed through their books, whereas 
they might have paid a draft in which T was interested 
and yet no entry made of it on their books. On the 
criticism being made known to the firm, they at once 
addressed me the following letter : 

* “ ‘ New York, April 13, 1876. 

“ ‘Dear Sir : It has been suggested to us that our 
letter of the 6th instant was not sufficiently inclusive or 
exclusive. In that letter we stated “that no draft, note, 
or check, or other evidence of value has ever passed 
through our books in which you were known or sup¬ 
posed to have any interest, direct or indirect.” It may 
be proper for us to add that nothing has been paid to 
us in any form or at any time, to any person or any cor- 
])oration in which you were known, believed, or supposed 
to have any interest whatever. 

“‘We remain, very respectfully, your obedient ser¬ 
vants, Morton, Bliss & Co. 

“ ‘ I Ion. James G. Blaine, 

“‘Washington, D. C.’ 


128 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


“ The two witnesses quoted for the original charge 
having thus effectually disposed of it, the charge itself 
reappeared in another form to this effect, namely : That 
a certain draft was negotiated at the house of Morton, 
Bliss & Company, in 1871, through Thomas A. Scott, 
then president of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, 
for the sum of $64,000, and that $75,000 of the bonds of 
the Little Rock & Fort Smith Railroad Company were 
pledged as collateral ; that the Union Pacific company 
paid the draft and took up the collateral ; that the cash 
proceeds of it went to me, and that I had furnished, or 
sold, or in some way conveyed or transferred to Thomas 
A. Scott, these Little Rock & Fort Smith bonds which 
had been used as collateral ; that the bonds in reality 
liad belonged to me or some friend or constituent of 
mine for whom I was acting. I endeavor to state the 
charge in its boldest form and in all its phases. 

“ I desire here and now to declare that all and every 
part of this story that connects my name with it is ab¬ 
solutely untrue, without a particle of foundation in fact 
and without a tittle of evidence to substantiate it. I 
never had any transaction of any kind with Thomas A. 
Scott concerning bonds of the Little Rock & Fort 
Smith road, or the bonds of any other railroad, or any 
business in any way connected with railroads, directly 
or indirectly, immediately or remotely. I never had any 
business transactions whatever with the Union Paci¬ 
fic Railroad Company, or any of its officers or agents 
or representatives, and never in any manner received 


SLAXDER. 


129 


from that compan^dircctly or indirectly, a single dollar 
in money, or stocks, or bonds, or any other form of 
value. And as to the particular transaction referred to, 
I never so much as heard of it until nearly two years 
after its alleged occurrence, when it was talked of at the 
time of the Credit Mobilier investigation in 1873. But 
while my denial ought to be conclusive, I should greatly 
regret to be compelled to leave the matter there. I am 
fortunately able to sustain my own declaration by the 
most conclusive evidence that the case admits of or that 
human testimony can supply. If any person or persons 
know the truth or falsity of these charges, it must be 
the officers of the Union Pacific Railroad Company. I 
accordingly addressed a note to the president of that 
company, a gentleman who has been a director of the 
company from its organization, I believe, who has a 
more thorough acquaintance with its business transac¬ 
tions, probably, than any other man. The correspond¬ 
ence wdiich I here submit will explain itself and leave 
nothing to be said. I will read these letters in their 
proper order. They need no comment. 


“ ‘Washington, D. C., April 13, 1876. 

“ ‘ Dear Sir : You have doubtless observed the scandal 
now in circidation in regard to my having been in¬ 
terested in certain bonds of the Little Rock & hort 
Smith road, alleged to have been purchased by your 
company in 1871. It is due to me, I think, that some 
statemeiiL in regard to the subject should be made by 
9 


130 


JAMES G. BLAEVE. 


yourself as the official head of the Union Pacific Rail¬ 
road Company. 

“ ‘ Very respectfully, J. G. Blaine. 

“ ‘Sidney Dillon, Esq., 

“‘President Union Pacific Railroad Company.’:; 


“‘Office Union Pacific Railroad Company, ) 

“ ‘ New York, April 15, 1876. f 

“ ‘ Dear Sir : I ha^ve your favor of the 13th instant, and 
in reply desire to say that I have this day written 
Colonel Thomas A. Scott, who was president of the 
Union Pacific company at the time of the transaction 
referred to, a letter of which I send a copy herewith. 
On receipt of this reply I will enclose it to you. 

“ ‘ Very respectfully, 

“ ‘ Sidney Dillon, President. 

“ ‘ Hon. James G. Blaine, 

“ ‘ Washington, D. C.’ 

“ ‘ Office of the Union Pacific Railroad Co., ) 

“ ‘ New York, April 15, 1876. ) 

“ ‘ Dear Sir : The press of the country are making al¬ 
legations that certain bonds of the Little Rock & Fort 
Smith Railroad Company in 1871 were obtained from 
Hon. James G. Blaine, of Maine, or that the avails in 
some form went to his benefit, and that the knowledge 
*of those facts rests with the officers of the company and 
with yourself. These statements are injurious both 
to Mr. Blaine and to the Union Pacific Railroad Com¬ 
pany. There were never any facts to warrant them, 
and I think that a statement to the public is due both 
from you and myself. I desire, as president of the com¬ 
pany, to repel any such inference in the most emphatic 


S/.ANDKR. 131 

manner, and would be glad to hear from you on the 
subject. Very respectfully, 

“‘Sidney Dillon, President. 

“‘Col. Thomas A. Scott, Philadelphia, Pa.’ 

“ ‘ Office Union Pacific Railroad Company, ) 

“ ‘ New York, April 22, 1876. \ 

“ ‘ Dear Sir : As I advised you some days ago, I wrote 
Col. Thomas A. Scott and begged leave to enclose you 
his reply. I desire further to say that I was a director 
of the company and a member of the executive commit¬ 
tee in 1871, and to add my testimony to that of Col. 
Scott in verification of all that he has stated in the en¬ 
closed letter. Truly yours, 

“ ‘ Sidney Dillon, President. 

‘“ Hon. James G. Blaine, 

“ ‘Washington, D. C.’ 

“‘Philadelphia, April 21, 1876. 

“ ‘ My Dear Sir : I have vour letter under date New 
York April 15, 1876, stating that the press.of the coun¬ 
try are making allegations that certain bonds of the 
Little Rock & Fort Smith Railroad, purchased by the 
Union Pacific Railroad Company in 1871, were obtained 
from Hon. J. G. Blaine, of Maine, or that the avails in 
some form went to his benefit ; that there never were 
any facts to warrant them ; that it is your desire as 
president of the company to repel any such influence 
in the most emphatic manner, and asking me to make a 
statement in regard to the matter. 

“ ‘ In reply, I beg leave to say that much as I dislike 
the idea of entering into any of the controversies that 
are before the public in these days of scandal from 


132 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


which but a few men in public life seeni to be exempt, 
I feel it my duty to state ; 

“‘That the Little Rock & Fort Smith bonds pur¬ 
chased by the Union Pacific Railroad Company in 1871, 
were not purchased or received from Mr. Blaine, di¬ 
rectly or indirectly, and that of the money paid by the 
Union Pacific Railroad Company, or of the avails of 
said bonds, not one dollar went to Mr. Blaine or to any 
person for him, or for his benefit in any form. 

‘“All statements to the effect that Mr. Blaine ever had 
any transactions with me, directly or indirectly, involv¬ 
ing money or valuables of any kind, are absolutely 
without foundation in fact. 

“‘I take pleasure in making this statement to you, 
and you may use it in any manner you deem best for the 
interest of the Union Pacific Railroad Company. 

“ ‘ Very truly yours, 

“ ‘ Thomas A. Scott. 
‘“Sidney Dillon, Esq., President, 

“‘Union Pacific Railroad Company, New York.’ 


“ Let me now, Mr. Speaker, briefly summarize what I 
presented : First, that the story of my receiving $64,000 
or any other sum of money, or anything of value, from 
the Union Pacific Railroad Company, directly or indi¬ 
rectly, or in any form, is absolutely disproved by 
the most conclusive testimony. Second, that no bond 
of mine was ever sold to the Atlantic & Pacific, or 
the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad Company, and 
that not a single dollar of money from either of these 
companies ever went to my profit or benefit. Third, 


SLAjWDER. 


133 


tliat instead of receiving bonds of the Little Rock & 
Fort Smith road as a gratuity, I never iiad one except 
at the regular market price ; and instead of making a 
large fortune off that company, I have incurred a severe 
pecuniary loss from my investment in its securities, 
which I still retain ; and out of such affairs as these 
grows the popular gossip of large fortunes amassed in 
Congress. I can hardly expect, Mr. Speaker, that any 
statement from me will stop the work of those who 
have so industriously circulated these calumnies. For 
months past the effort has been energetic and contin¬ 
uous to spread these stories in private circles. Emis¬ 
saries of slander have-visited editorial rooms of leading 
Republican papers from Boston to Omaha, and whis- 
])ered of revelations to come that were too terrible even 
to be spoken in loud tones, and at last, the revelations 
have been made. I am now, Mr. Speaker, in the four¬ 
teenth year of a not inactive service in this hall ; 1 
have taken and have given blows ; I have doubt said 
many things in the heat of debate that I would gladly 
recall ; I have no doubt given votes which in fuller light 
I would gladly change ; but I have never done anything 
in my public career for which I could be put to the 
faintest blush in any presence, or for which I cannot 
answer to my constituents, my conscience, and the Great 
Searcher of Hearts.” 

Comment upon this need not be made ; but it is worth 
while to add, as an indication of public sentiment at the 
time, this fair and ample statement from Mr. George 


134 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


William Curtis. It appeared \x\ Hai'per's Weekly^ May 13, 
1876. Mr. Curtis wrote : 

“In speaking of the railroad-bond scandal about Mr. 
Blaine we said that at least it would be admitted that he 
had always shown himself acute enough to escape the 
traps into which the honest but dull will often fall. If 
high principle should be denied to him, and if, as is 
sometimes asserted, he is merely a politician, yet surely 
he is a politician of sagacity enough to know that, in 
public life, honesty, if nothing more, is certainly good 
policy. The substance of the charge against Mr. Blaine 
Avas that when he was Speaker of the House, and when 
Mr. Thomas Scott Avas president of the Union Pacific 
Railroad Company, he caused the company to buy bonds 
to the amount of $75,000, Avhich A\"ere almost Avorthless, 
for $64,000, and the insinuation Avas that this AAms a bribe 
to secure the favor of Mr. Blaine for INIr. Scott’s raihvay 
projects before Congress. Plainly stated, this Avas the 
charge. Of course, if believed it Avas fatal to Mr. Blaine ; 
and at this time, Avhen the public mind is Amry suspi¬ 
cious, the mere accusation Avas not unlikely to be of 
great injury to him. The story had been privately 
Avhispered, and there had been a conference of -Republi¬ 
can editors at Cincinnati, Avhich ended by acquainting 
him of the rumor. Suddenly it Avas made public in a 
Democratic paper'at Indianapolis, and in other journals 
in other parts of the country. Then, of course, it AAms 
echoed and re-echoed through the Avhole press. Mr. 
Blaine instantly published an absolute and complete 


SLANDER. 


135 


denial, and having collected evidence that is apparently 
conclusive; he made a brief, clear, simple statement in 
the House, whicli was as thorough a refutation as was 
ever made, and, in the absence of other evidence, leaves 
him unspotted. 

“He showed by the testimony of the officers and bank¬ 
ers who had been cited as agents that he had never re¬ 
ceived from them, directly or indirectly, any money, as 
charged. Mr. Scott, in the most explicit manner, de¬ 
clared that Mr. Blaine had never had any transaction 
whatever with him, directly or indirectly, involving 
money or valuables of any kind. The treasurer of the 
road, Mr. E. H. Rollins, was equally precise and unquali¬ 
fied in his declaration, and Messrs. Morton, Bliss & Co., 
who were said to have been paid the money, said : ‘ Noth¬ 
ing has been paid by us, in any form or at any time, to 
any person or any corporation in which you were known, 
believed, or supposed to have any interest whatever.’ 
Mr. Blaine states that he bought in 1869 some bonds of 
the Little Rock & Fort Smith Railroad, which derives 
its franchise and rights entirely from the State of Ar¬ 
kansas. He paid for his bonds the price that all buyers 
paid, and, with other buyers, he lost by them. His loss 
was more than ^20,000. All the bonds that he ever 
bought he held until the company was reorganized in 
1874, when he exchanged them for stocks and bonds in 
the new concern, which he still holds. When the At- 
lai^ic & Pacific, and Missouri, Kansas & Texas roads 
bought some of the securities of the Little Rock road, 



136 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


Mr. Blaine knew of the negotiation, but none of the 
bonds sold to those roads belonged to him, “nor did he 
have a single dollar’s pecuniary interest in the transac¬ 
tion. 

“ This is the statement of Mr. Blaine, supported by un¬ 
questionable testimony. He has not sought investiga¬ 
tion because he knew by experience how long he would 
have to wait for a report; and while awaiting the slow 
action of a committee, with the charges still pending, 
he could not have published the evidence which he has 
now submitted. He knew, moreover, although he does 
not say, and everybody knows, that the Democratic in¬ 
vestigating committee would have delayed any report 
until after the Cincinnati convention, as a fatal blow to 
INIr. Blaine’s possible candidacy. But if the House now 
wishes to open an inquir}’- he will gladly give all the as¬ 
sistance he can to make it rigorous and thorough. In 
justice to Mr. Blaine we present the concluding sum¬ 
mary of his speech : 

[The summary quoted above was here inserted.] 

“ If nobody now appears to justify this accusation, it 
must be considered merely one of the reckless slanders* 
to which every prominent public man is exposed, and^ 
no'charge that may be hereafter made against Mr. Blaine’, 
unaccompanied by weighty testimony, will deserve any 
attention whatever.” 

The story of the events which intervened between 
the date of this clear and convincing statement 
June 5th, when he made a personal explanation in the . 



SLAA^DEA\ 


137 


House, is told by Mr. Blaine in the course of that ex¬ 
planation, and here, as elsewhere, it is preferred to allow 
him to speak for himself : 

Mr. Blaine. “ If the morning hour has expired, I will 
rise to a question of privilege.” 

The Speaker pro tempore. ‘‘The morning hour has 
expired.” 

Mr. Blaine. “ Mr. Speaker, on the second day of May 
this resolution was passed by the House : 

“ ‘ Whereas, it is publicly alleged, and is not denied by 
the officers of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, 
that that corporation did, in the year 1871 or 1872, be¬ 
come the owner of certain bonds of the Little Rock & 
Fort Smith Railroad Company, for which bonds the 
said Union Pacific Railroad Company paid a considera¬ 
tion largely in excess of their market or actual value, 
and that the board of directors of said Union Pacific 
Railroad Company, though urged, have neglected to 
investigate said transaction ; therefore, 

“ ‘■Be it resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary 
be instructed to inquire if any such transaction took 
place, and, if so, what were the circumstances or induce¬ 
ments thereto, from what person or persons said bonds 
were obtained and upon what consideration, and 
whether the transaction was from corrupt design or in 
furtherance of any corrupt object ; and that the com¬ 
mittee have power to send for persons and papers.’ 

“That resolution on its face and in its fair intent was 
obviously designed to find out whether any improper 


138 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


thing had been done by the Union Pacific Railroad 
Company ; and of course, incidentally thereto, to find 
out with whom the transaction was made. 

‘‘No sooner was the sub-committee designated than it 
became entirely obvious that the resolution was solely 
and only aimed at me. I think there had not been 
three questions asked until it was evident that the in¬ 
vestigation was to be a personal one upon me, and that 
the Union Pacific Railroad, or any other incident of the 
transaction, was secondary, insignificant, and unimpor¬ 
tant. J do not complain of that ; I do not say that I had 
any reason to complain of it. If the investigation was 
to be made in that personal sense, I was ready to 
meet it. 

“ The gentleman on whose statement the accusation 
rested was first called. He stated what he knew from 
rumor. Then there were called Mr. Rollins, Mr. Mor¬ 
ton, and Mr. Millard, from Omaha, a Government di¬ 
rector of the Union Pacific road, and finally Thomas A. 
Scott. The testimony was completely and conclusively 
in disproof of the charge that there was any possibility 
that I could have had anything to do with the transac¬ 
tion. When the famous witness Mulligan came here 
loaded with information in regard to the Fort Smitli 
road, the gentleman from Virginia drew out what he 
knew had no reference whatever to the question of in¬ 
vestigation. He then and there insisted on all of my 
private memoranda being allowed to be exhibited by 
tliat man in reference to business that had no more 


SLANDER . 139 

connection, no more relation, no more to do with that 
investigation than with the North Pole. 

“And the gentleman tried his best, also, though I be¬ 
lieve that has been abandoned, to capture and use and 
control my private correspondence. This man has se¬ 
lected, out of correspondence running over a great 
many years, letters which he thought would be pecu¬ 
liarly damaging to me. lie came here loaded with 
tliem. He came here for a sensation. He came here 
primed. He came here on that particular errand. I 
was advised of it, and I obtained those letters under cir¬ 
cumstances which have been notoriouslv scattered over 
the United States, and are known to everybody. I have 
them. I claim that I have the entire right to tliose 
letters, not only by natural right, but by all the princi¬ 
ples and precedents of law, as the man who held those 
letters in possession held them wrongfully. The com¬ 
mittee that attempted to take those letters from that 
man for use against me proceeded wrongfully. It 
proceeded in all boldness to a most defiant violation of 
the ordinary private and personal rights which belong 
to every American citizen. I wanted the gentleman 
.from Kentucky and the gentleman from Virginia to 
introduce that question upon this floor, but they did 
not do it. 

“ I stood up and declined, not only on the conclu¬ 
sions of my own mind, but by eminent legal advice. I 
was standing behind the rights wliich belong to every 
American citizen, and if they wanted to treat the ques- 


140 


JAMES C. BLA/NE. 


tion in my person anywhere in the legislative halls or 
judicial halls, I was ready. Then there went forth 
everywhere the idea and impression that because I 
would not permit that man, or any man whom I could 
prevent from holding as a menace over my head my 
private correspondence, there must be in it something 
deadly and destructive to my reputation. I would like 
any gentleman to stand up here and tell me that he is 
willing and ready to have his private correspondence 
scanned over and made public for the last eight or ten 
years. I would like any gentleman to say that. Does it 
imply guilt ? Does it imply wrong-doing ? Does it 
imply any sense of weakness that a man will protect his 
private correspondence ? No, sir ; it is the first instinct 
to do it, and it is the last outrage upon any man to 
violate it. 

“ Now, Mr. Speaker, I say that I have defied the power 
of the House to compel me to produce these letters. 

I speak with all respect to this House. 'I know its 
powers, and I trust I respect them. But I say that this 
House has no more power to order what shall be done 
or not done with my private correspondence, than it 
has with what I shall do in the nurture and education^ 
of my children, not a particle. The right is as sacred 
in the one case as it is in the other. But, sir, having 
vindicated that right, standing by it, ready to make any 
sacrifice in the defence of it, here and now if anv tren- 
tleman wants to take issue with me on behalf of this 
House I am ready for any extremity of contest or con- 


SLANDER. 


141 

flict in behalf of so sacred a right. And while I am so, 
I am not afraid to show the letters. Thank God al¬ 
mighty, I am not ashamed to show them. There they 
are (holding up a package of letters). There is the 
very original package. And with some sense of humili¬ 
ation, with a mortification I do not attempt to conceal, 
with a sense of the outrage which I think any man in 
iny position would feel, I invite the confidence of forty- 
four millions of my countrymen, while I read those let¬ 
ters from this desk. [Applause.] 

• •••••• 

“ The next letter to which I refer was dated Wash¬ 
ington, District of Columbia, April 18, 1872. This is 
the letter in which Mulligan says and puts down in his 
abstract that I admitted the sixty-four thousand dollar 
sale of bonds : 


“ ‘Washington, D. C, April 18, 1872. 

“ ‘ My Dear Mr. Fisher : I answered you very hastily 
last evening, as you said you wished for an immediate 
reply, and perhaps in my hurry I did not make myself 
fully understood. You have been for some time labor¬ 
ing under a totally erroneous impression in regard to 
my results in the Fort Smith matter. The sales of 
bonds which you spoke of my making, and which you 
seem to have thought w’ere for my own benefit, were 
entirely otherwise. I did not have the money in my 
possession forty-eight hours, but paid it over directly to 
the parties whom I tried by every means in my power 
to protect from loss. I am very sure that you have 
little idea of the labors, the losses, the efforts and the 


T 42 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


sacrifices I have made within the past year to save those 
innocent persons, who invested on my request, from 
personal loss. 

“ ‘ And I say to you to-night that I am immeasurably 
worse off than if I had never touched the Fort Smith 
matter. The demand you make upon me now is one 
which I am entirely unable to comply with. I cmmot 
do it. It is not in my powe?'. You say that “ necessity 
knows no law.” That applies to me as well as to you, 
and when I have reached the point I am now at I 
simply fall back on that law. You are as well aware as 
I am that the bonds are due me under the contract. 
Could I have them I could adjust many matters not 
now in my power, and as long as this and other matters 
remain unadjusted between us I do not recognize the 
equity or the lawfulness of your calling on me for a 
partial settlement. I am ready at any moment to make 
a full, fair, comprehensive settlement with you on the 
most liberal terms. I will not be exacting or captious 
or critical, but am ready and eager to make a broad 
and generous adjustment with you, and if we can’t 
agree ourselves, we can select a mutual friend who can 
easily compromise all points of difference between us. 

“ ‘ You will, I trust, see that I am disposed to meet you 
in a spirit of friendly cordiality, and yet with a sense of 
self-defence that impels me to be frank and expose to 
you my pecuniary weakness. 

“ ‘ With very kind regards to Mrs. Fisher, I am yours 
truly, 

‘‘ ‘ J. G. Blaine. 

‘"‘W. Fisher, Jr., Esq.’ 

I now pass to a letter dated Augusta, Me., October 
4, 1869, but I read these letters now somewhat in their 


SLANDEA\ 143 

order. Now to this letter I ask the attention of tlie 
House. In the March session of 1869, the first one 
at which I was speaker, the extra session of the Forty- 
first Congress, a land grant in the State of Arkansas to 
the Little Rock road was reported. I never reincinber 
to have heard of the road, until at the last night of the 
session, when it was up here for consideration. The 
gentlemen in Boston with whom I had relations did not 
have anything to do with that road for nearly three or 
four months after that time. It is in the light of. that 
statement that I desire that letter read. 

“ In the autumn, six or eight months afterward, I was 
looking over the Globe, probably with some curiosity, if 
not pride, to see the decisions I had made the first five 
weeks I was Speaker. I had not until then recalled this 
decision of mine, and when I came across it, all the 
facts came back to me fresli, and I wrote this letter: 

(Personal.) 

“‘Augusta, Me., October 4, 1869. 

‘‘ ‘ My Dear Sir : I spoke to you a sliort time ago 
about a point of interest to your railroad company that 
occurred at the last session of the Congress. 

“ ‘ It was on the last night of the session, when the bill 
renewing the land grant to the State of Arkansas for 
tlie Little Rock road was reached, and Julian, of Indi¬ 
ana, Chairman of the Public Lands Committee, and, by 
right, entitled to the floor, attempted to put on the bill 
as an amendment, the Fremont El Paso scheme — a 
scheme probably well known to Mr. Caldwell. 1 he 
House was thin, and the lobby in the Fremont interest 


144 


JAMES a. BLAINE. 


had the thing all set up, and Julian's amendment was 
likely to prevail if brought to a vote. Roots, and the 
other members from Arkansas, who were doing their 
best for their own bill (to which there seemed to be no 
objection), were in despair, for it was well known that 
the Senate was hostile to the Fremont scheme, and if 
the Arkansas bill had gone back to the Senate with 
Julian’s amendments, the whole thing could have gone 
on the table and slept the sleep of death. 

‘‘ ‘ In this dilemma Roots came to me to know what 
on earth he could do under the rules ; for he said it was 
vital •to his constituents that the bill should pass. I told 
him that Julian’s amendment was entirely out of order, 
because not germane ; but he had not sufficient con¬ 
fidence in his own knowledge of the rules to make the- 
point, but he said General Logan was opposed to the 
Fremont scheme and would probably make the point. 

I sent my page to General Logan with the suggestion, 
and he at once made the point. I could not do other¬ 
wise than sustain it, and so the bill was freed from the 
mischievous amendment moved by Julian, and at once 
passed without objection. 

“‘At that time I had never seen Mr. Caldwell, but 
you can tell him that without knowing it I did him a 
great favor. Sincerely yours, 

“ ‘ J. G. Blaine. 

“‘W. Fisher, Jr., Esq., 

“ ‘ 24 India Street, Boston.’ 

“ The amendment referred to in that letter will be 
found in the Co 7 ig 7 'essional Glob^ of the First Session of 
the Forty-first Congress, page 702. That was before the 
Boston persons had ever touched the road. 


SLANDER. 


145 


.“There is mentioned in another letter $6,000 of land- 
grant bonds of the Union Pacific Railroad for which I 
stood as only part owner ; these were only in part mine. 
As I have started to make a personal explanation, 1 
want to make a full explanation in regard to this matter. 
Those bonds were not mine except in this sense : In 
1869, a lady who is a member of my family and whose 
financial affairs I have looked after for many \mars— 
many gentlemen will know to whom I refer without my 
being more explicit—bought on the recommendation of 
Mr. Hooper $6,000 in land-grant bonds of the Union 
Pacific Railroad as they were issued in 1869. She got 
them on what was called the stockholder’s basis ; I think 
it was a very favorable basis on which they distributed 
these bonds. These $6,000 of land-grant bonds were 
obtained in that way. 

“ In i87i.tl^e Union Pacific Railroad Company broke 
down, and these bonds fell so that they were worth about 
forty cents on tlie dollar. She was anxious to make 
herself safe, and I had so much confidence in the -Fort 
Smith land bonds that I proposed to her to make an ex¬ 
change. The six bonds were in my possession, and I 
had previously advanced money to her for certain pur¬ 
poses and held a part of these bonds as security for that 
advance. The bonds in that sense, and in that sense 
only, were mine—that they were security for the h)an 
which I had made. They were all literally hers ; they 
were all sold finally for her account—not one of them for 
me. I make this statement in order to be perfectly fair. 


146 JAMES G. BLAINE. 

“I have now read these fifteen letters, the whole of 
them, the House and the country now know all there is 
in them. They are dated and they correspond precisely 
with Mulligan’s memorandum which I have here. 

• •..•••••* 

“ I do not wish to detain the House, but I have one or 
two more observations to make. The specific charge 
tliat went to the committee as it affects me is whether I 
was a party in interest to the ^64,000 transaction ; and 
I submit that up to this time there has not been one 
particle of proof before the committee sustaining that 
charge. Gentlemen have said that they heard some¬ 
body else say, and generally, when that somebody else 
was brought on the stand, it appeared that he did not 
say it at all. Colonel Thomas A. Scott swore very posi¬ 
tively and distinctly, under the most rigid cross-exam¬ 
ination, all about it. Let me call attention to that letter 
of mine which Mulligan says refers to that. I ask your 
attention, gentlemen, as closely as if you were a jury, 
while I shoAV the absurdity of that statement. It is in 
evidence that, with the exception of a small fraction, the 
bonds which were sold to parties in Maine were first 
mortgage bonds. It is in evidence over and over again 
that the bonds which went to the Union Pacific road 
were land-grant bonds. Therefore it is a moral impos¬ 
sibility that the bonds taken up to Maine should have 
gone to the Union Pacific Railroad. They were of dif¬ 
ferent series, different kinds, different colors, everything 
different, as different as if not issued within a thousand 


SLANDE /^!. 147 

miles of each other. So on its face it is shown that it 
could not be so. 

“There has not been, I say, one positive piece of tes¬ 
timony in any direction. They sent to Arkansas to get 
some hearsay about bonds. They sent to Boston to get 
some hearsay. Mulligan was contradicted by Fisher, 
and Atkins and Scott swore directly against him. Mor¬ 
ton, of Morton, Bliss & Co., never heard my name in the 
matter. Carnegee, who negotiated the note, never 
heard my name in that connection. Rollins said it was 
one of the intangible rumors he spoke of as lloating in 
the air. Gentlemen who have lived any time in Wash¬ 
ington need not be told that intangible rumors get very 
considerable circulation here; and if a man is to be held 
accountable before the bar of public opinion for intan¬ 
gible rumors, who in the House will stand ? 

“ Now, gentlemen, those letters I have read were pick¬ 
ed out of correspondence extending over fifteen years. 
The man did his worst, the very worst he could, out of 
the most intimate business correspondence of my life. 
I ask, gentlemen, if any of you, and I ask it with some 
feeling, can stand a severer scrutiny of, or more rigid 
investigation into, your private correspondence? That 
was the worst he could do. 

“ There is one piece of testimony wanting. There is 
but one thing to close the complete circle of evidence. 
'Fhere is but one witness whom I could not have, to 
whom the Judiciary Committee, taking into account the 
Qfreat and intimate connection he liad with the transac- 


148 


JAMES G. BLATNE. 


tion, was asked to send a cable despatch, and I ask the 
gentleman from Kentucky if that cable despatch was 
sent to him ? 

Mr. Frye. Who ? 

Mr. Blaine. To Josiah Caldwell. 

Mr. Knott. I will reply to the gentleman that Judge 
Hamton and myself have both endeavored to get Mr. 
Caldwell’s address, and have not yet got it. 

Mr. Blaine. Flas the gentleman from Kentucky re¬ 
ceived a despatch from Mr. Caldwell ? 

Mr. Knott. I will explain that directly. 

Mr. Blaine. I want a categorical answer. 

Mr. Knott. I have received a despatch purporting to 
be from Mr. Caldwell. 

Mr. Blaine. You did ? 

Mr. Knott. How did you know I got it ? 

Mr. Blaine. When did you get it ? I want the gentle¬ 
man from Kentucky to answer when he got it. 

Mr. Knott. Answer my question first. 

Mr. Blaine. I never heard of it until yesterday. 

Mr. Knott. How did you hear it ? 

Mr. Blaine. I heard that you got a despatch last 
Thursday morning, at eight o’clock, from Josiah Cald¬ 
well, completely and absolutely exonerating me from 
this charge, and you have suppressed it. [Protracted 
applause upon the floor and in the galleries.] I want 
the gentleman to answer. [After a pause.] Does the 
gentleman from Kentucky decline to answer ? 

“ The gentleman from Kentucky in responding proba- 


SLANDER. 


149 


bly, I think, from what he said, intended to convey the 
idea that 1 had some illegitimate knowledge of how 
that despatch was obtained. I have had no communi¬ 
cation with Josiah Caldwell. I have had no means of 
knowing from the telegraph office whether the despatcli 
was received. But I tell the gentleman from Kentucky 
that murder will out, and secrets will leak. And I tell 
the gentleman now, and I am prepared to state to this 
House, that at eight o’clock on last Thursday morning, 
or thereabouts, the gentleman from Kentucky received 
and receipted for a message addressed to him from 
Josiah Caldwell, in J^ondon, entirely corroborating and 
substantiating the statements of Thomas A. Scott wliich 
he had just read in the New York papers, and entirely 
exculpating me from the charge which I am bound to 
believe, from the suppression of that report, that the 
gentleman is anxious to fasten upon me.'” (Protracted 
applause from the lloor and galleries.) 

The reporter’s interpolations give little idea of the 
enthusiasm with which this manly and straightforward 
statement was received, and the sensation of syffipathy 
and approval whicii ran through the House when Mr. 
l^laine, at the close, advanced to the space in front of 
the clerk’s desk and denounced Mr. Knott, is not to be 
rendered upon paper. It was agreed among those pres¬ 
ent that it was the most stirring scene which has taken 
place on the floor of Congress. The oldest repre¬ 
sentatives remembered nothing like it, and Creneial 
Garfield said, “ I have been a long time in Congress and 


150 


JAMES G. BIMINE. 


never saw such a scene in the House ; when the Eman-1 
cipation amendment to the Constitution was adopted 
there was an exciting’ scene, but nothing like this. It 
seems to me that the Judiciary Committee has withheld 
important evidence which will be ruinous to them, and i 
in any event the day has been a strong one for Blaine ' 
and his friends.” 

« I 

Men in the House of all parties, and of all shades of 
political opinion, agreed that Mr. Blaine’s vindication 
was final, and the further action of the committee which 
had slandered him was work of supererogation. 




XV. 


BEFORE THE CONVENTIONS OF 1876 AND 1880. 

The animosity toward Mr. Blaine which, by an inter¬ 
esting coincidence, showed its head scarcely a month 
preceding the convention before which he was to come 
as the most prominent candidate for the presidential 
nomination has been duly treated elsewhere. It is now 
the business of Mr. Blaine’s biographer to give some 
account of the three conventions of the Republican 
party at which he has been supported by an earnest 
following. The company of sturdy -friends which has 
three times urged his nomination is among the most 
zealous and persistent that has sustained any public 
man in the history of American politics : twice repulsed, 
they clung to their candidate with the tenacity of faith, 
and their final reward has, for the most impartial spec¬ 
tator, the interest which attends every exhibition of 
steadfastness. Mr. Blaine set his followers an excellent 
example in his honest and self-denying labors for the 
election of the two rivals who had defeated him; and it 
is a memorable tribute to his singleness of purpose, 
his devotion to his party, untainted by selfish pangs, 
that he could so heartily support the man who at the 


152 


JAMES G. BE A EVE. 


eleventh hour received a prize all but his, as to be chosen 
to fill the first place in his Cabinet. 

On June 12, 1876, just before the meeting of the first 

convention at which his name was proposed, Mr. 

Blaine experienced a sunstroke in Washington which 

caused alarm at Cincinnati, and, indeed, for a time 

seemed a serious matter. He appeared to be in sound 

health before setting out for church on the Sunday 

morning of the occurrence, but after walking half a mile 

to Rev. Dr. Rankin’s church, at Tenth and D Streets, he 

\ 

suddenly sank unconscious at the threshold. He was 
carried to a passing omnibus and taken home. His 
physician pronounced the cause cerebral depression, 
produced primarily by a great mental strain and second¬ 
arily by the action of excessive heat. Since his striking 
answer in the House to the charges against him he had 
appeared publicly but once, when he voted in the af¬ 
firmative on the Frost amended Coin bill. His illness 
was the inevitable culmination of the long tension to 
which his mind had been subjected. 

At Cincinnati the reports of his condition were 
greatly exaggerated. It was telegraphed that he had 
been stricken with apoplexy, and the statement stirred 
such of the delegates in his interest as had arrived in 
the city with grave fears. The hotels and telegraph 
offices at which announcements of the state of the patient 
were constantly posted during the afternoon and even¬ 
ing of the occurrence were thronged with eager men, 
and the midnight bulletin indicating that the danger 


HEFOKK THE CO/VrEXT/O.VS OF 1S76 /IXD i88d. 153 

was passed caused great relief. The anxiety was gen¬ 
eral, and his most malignant opponents showed no de¬ 
sire for such a victory as for a time seemed probable. 
Nevertheless, when he seemed on the road to recovery 
there were not lacking ingenious supporters of other 
candidates willing to turn the happening to account. 
1 he subtle character of brain diseases was urged and 
the tardiness of recovery from them ; and it was freely 
predicted that if nominated he would be unable to take 
the active part in the campaign which had been ex¬ 
pected of him. Absolute quiet, the well-known need in 
all maladies touching the brain, would make the excite¬ 
ment of a campaign dangerous, and even though he 
might temporarily regain strength, the party could have 
no assurance that he would not suffer another attack of 
like nature and die before the campaign was over. Tliis 
doctor’s wisdonmvas seriously urged upon the abandoned 
persons who stib Jiought cf Mr. Blaine as a candidate 
with little effect The party physicians added to their 
diagnosis the suggestion of remedies which the Blaine 
men found themselves disinclined to accept. On June 
14th the patient was well enough to dictate to Mr. Hale, 
at Cincinnati, the following telegram : 

“ IIoN. Eugene Hale, Cincinnati: I am entirely con¬ 
valescent, suffering only from physical weakness. Im¬ 
press upon my friends the great depth of gratitude I feel 
for the unparalleled steadfastness with which they have 
adhered to me in my hour of trial. J. G. Blaine.” 

The convention came together in Cincinnati on Wed- 


JAMES G. BLAJNE. 



154 JAMES G. BLAJNE. 

nesday, June 14, 1876. Its organization was accomplished 
harmoniously. Theodore M, Pomeroy, of New York, was J 
appointed temporary chairman, and Edward McPhersofi^ 
of Pennsylvania, president. The preliminary acts of tlie 
convention and the speeches made showed no especial 
tendency of sentiment except an inclination toward hard 
money and civil service reform. A newspaper correspon¬ 
dent wrote : “ A less attractive place for so distinguished 
ajid interesting a gathering could not well be found than 
this great barn which sprawls over four acres—its archi¬ 
tecture that of an ambitious and disappointed railway 
depot, its decorations those of a country barbecue on a 
four-acre scale, its rafters innocent of any tint except that 
of age, and its roof an unsightly maze of beams and rafters. 

On the second day the platform was adopted. The 
Blaine men met with a defeat in the acceptance of the 
report on rules. The nominations wepe made in the 
following order : Postmaster-General Jewell, Senator 
Morton, Secretary Bristow, Mr. Blaine, Senator Conk- 
ling, Governor Playes, and Governor Hartranft. The 
nomination of Mr. Bristow by George William Curtis was 
greeted with loud applause, and other candidates had 
their share. When Colonel Ingersoll rose to name Mr. 
Blaine a great shout went up. During his speech he 
was constantly interrupted by applause. Colonel Inger- 
soll’s address has always been regarded by the friends of 
Mr. Blaine as an admirable summing up of his qualities, 
and it is certainly one of the most vigorous and brilliant 
presentations of a candidate’s claims to public attention 



BEFORE THE COXVENTTOyR OF 1876 A .YD i88o. I 55 

tliat convention halls remember. It is filled with tlie in¬ 
dividuality of the orator, but it is also filled with the in¬ 
dividuality of his subject ; and it is impossible not to feel, 
at whatever distance from the occurrence, something of 
the thrill which affected the convention as the speaker 
ended his magnificent peroration : 

“ Massachusetts may be satisfied with the lovalty of 
Benjamin II. Bristow ; so am I. But if any man nom¬ 
inated by this convention cannot carry the State of 
Massachusetts, I am not satisfied with tlie loyalty of that 
State. If the nominee of this convention cannot carry 
the grand old Commonwealth of Massachusetts by 
seventy-five thousand majority, I would advise them to 
sell out Faneuil Hall as a Democratic headquarters. I 
would advise them to take from Bunker Hill that old 
monument of glory. The Republicans of the United 
States demand as their leader in the great contest of 1876 
a man of intellect, a man of integrity, a man of well 
known and approved political opinions. They demand 
a statesman. They demand a reformer after as well as 
before the election. They demand a politician in the 
highest and broadest and best sense of that word. They 
demand a ma« acquainted with public affairs, with the 
wants of the people, with not only the requirements of 
the hour, but the demands of the future. They demand 
a man broad enough to comprehend the relations of this 
Government to the other nations of the earth. They 
demand a man well versed in the powers, duties, and 
prerogatives of each and every department of this Gov- 


JAMES G. BLAJXE. 


I =;6 


* 


ernment. They demand a man who will sacredly prove 
the financial honor of the United States—one who 
knows enough to know that the national debt must be 
paid through the prosperity of this people. One who^ 
knows enough to know that all the financial theories in^ 
the world cannot redeem a single dollar. One who 
knows enough to know that all the money must be made ® 
not by hand but by labor. One who knows that the peo- ■.' 
pie of the United States have the industry to make the 
money and the honesty to pay it over just as fast as they 
make it. The Republicans of the United States demand 
a man who knows that prosperity and resumption when 
they come must come together. When they come they 
will come hand in hand ; hand in hand through the 
golden harvest-fields ; hand in hai d by the whirling spin¬ 
dle and the turning wheel; har d in hand by the open 
furnace-doors, hand in hand by the flaming, forges, hand 
in hand by the chimneys filled with eager fire by the 
hands of the countless sons of toil. This monev has eot 

J 

to be dug out of the earth. You cannot make it by 
passing resolutions at a political meeting. The Repub¬ 
licans of the United States want a man who knows that 
this Government should protect every citizen at home 
and abroad ; who knows that every government that 
will not defend its defenders and wdll not protect its 
protectors is a disgrace to the mass of the world. They 
demand a man who believes in the eternal separation 

of church and the schools. Thev demand a man whose 

✓ 

political reputation is spotless as a star, but they do not 



BEFORE THE CONVERATIONS OF iSjG ^1 .VD 1880. I 57 

demand that their candidate shall have a certificate of 
moral character signed by a Confederate Congress. 
The man who has in full habit and rounded measure 
all of these splendid qualifications is the present grand 
and gallant leader of the Republican party, James G. 
Blaine. Our counti*}^, crowned with the vast and mar¬ 
vellous achievements of its first centurv, asks for a man 
worthy of its past, prophetic of its future—asks for a 
man who has the audacity of genius—asks for a man 
who is the grandest combination of heart, conscience, 
and brains beneath the flag. That man is James G. 
Blaine. F'or the Republican host, led by that intrepid 
man, there can be no defeat. This is a grand year—a 
year filled with the recollections of the Revolution ; 
filled with proud and tender memories of the sacred 
past ; filled with the legends of liberty; a year in whicli 
the sons of Freedom will drink from the fountains of 
enthusiasm ; a year in which the people call for a man 
who has preserved in Congress what our soldiers won 
upon the field ; a year in which we call for the man 
that has torn from the throat of treason the tongue of 
slander ; a man that has snatched the mask of democ¬ 
racy from the hideous face of rebellion ; a man who, 
like an intellectual athlete, stood in the arena of debate, 
challenged all comers, and who up to this moment is a 
total stranger to defeat Like an armed warrior, like a 
plumed knight, James G. Blaine marched down the halls 
of the American Congress and threw his shining lances 
full and fair against the brazen forehead of every dc- 


158 


JAMES G. BLAIME. 


famer of his country and maligner of its honor. For 
the Republican party to desert that gallant man now is 
worse than if an army should desert their general on 
the field of battle. James G. Blaine is now and has 
been for years the bearer of the sacred standard of the 
Republic. I call it sacred because no human being 
can stand beneath its folds without becoming and with¬ 
out remaininsf free. Gentlemen of the Convention, in 
the name of the great Republic—the only Republic that 
ever existed upon tlris earth—in the name of all her 
defenders and all her supporters ; in the name of all 
her soldiers living, in the name of all her soldiers who 
died upon the field of. battle, and in the name of those 
that perished in the skeleton clutch of famine at Ander- 
sonville and Libby—whose sufferings he so eloquently 
remembers—Illinois nominates for the next President 
of this country that prince of parliamentarians, that 
leader of leaders, James G. Blaine.” 

The muddy shower of detraction that fell upon Mr. 
Blaine in the month preceding the convention which 
has nominated him is a weak afterburst compared with 
the storm which assailed him before the convention of 
1876. A week had scarcely passed since the memorable 
day of his striking vindication of himself on the floor 
of the House. The slanders against him were of no 
notable importance until within a fortnight of the con¬ 
vention. The shortness of the time left him with op¬ 
portunity for nothing but a peremptory defence, and 
his enemies, wlio had brought about this situation, took 




BEFORE THE COJVFE.VT/OA^S OF iSy 6 AATD 1880 . 159 


the amplest advantage of it. There were doubts of the 
expediency of his nomination among certain Republi¬ 
cans and Republican newspapers then as there have re¬ 
cently been—indeed among more Republicans and more 
party journals, as the matter was so fresh. But his 
friends kept their unswerving faith, and strengthened 
and heartened by his splendid personal answer to ins 
defamers went into the convention the staunchest and 
most enthusiastic body gathered to the support of any 
of its candidates. 

Some recollection of this recent event must remain in 
all minds, but a summary of the ballots will refresh 


memory : 


. • 

1 

1 st ballot. 1 

1 

i 

ballot. 1 

1 

1 

3cl ballot. 

1 

4tli ballot. 

5tli ballot 

6 th ballot. j 

1 

i 

7th ballot. 

Hayes. 

61 

64 

67 

68 

104 

II3 

384 

Blaine. 

285 

296 

293 

292 

286 

308 

351 

Morton. 

125 

120 


108 

95 

85 

• • • 

Bristow. 

“3 

II4 

I 2 I 

126 

114 

III 

21 

Conkling. 

99 

93 

90 

84 

82 

81 


Hartranft. 


63 

68 

71 

69 

50 


Jewell. 

II 

withdrawn. 





\Vm. A. Wheeler. 

3 

3 

2 

2 

2 

2 


Elihu B. Washburne. 

« • • 

I 

I 

3 


5 


Whole number of votes .. 

754 

754 

755 

1 

755 

755 

75 ^ 

Necessary to choice. 

378 

00 

378 

378 

378 

378 

379 


Fair and conserv^ative estimates before the Mulligan 


affair had set down his strength on the first ballot at 286 
votes. In spite of it he received 285, and added to it 
immediately ii further, making 296. From this the vote 























































l60 JAMES G. BLA/AE. 

varied until the sixth ballot, when it reached 308. On 
the seventh it attained 351, within 28 votes of the neces¬ 
sary number, when by a union of Morton, Bristow, Conk- 
ling, and Hartranft, Governor Hayes was named as the 
candidate of the convention. It was the strategy of des¬ 
peration, for Mr. Blaine would almost surely have been 
nominated on the next ballot. 

Mr. Blaine entered the next convention, held at Chi¬ 
cago, June 2, 1880, with almost exactly the same num¬ 
ber of supporters which had striven for him in the pre¬ 
ceding contest. The fact is remarkable, and most 
remarkable to those who are best acquainted with the 
usual working of politics in this country. Four years 
had been offered his opponents to make combinations 
against him, four years had been allowed his friends to 
forget him. He returned to the front after that period 
with a force changed almost entirely-as to its composi¬ 
tion, but with only one of the number missing. It was 
as if he had held them upon waiting orders during the 
term of Mr. Hayes’ administration. 

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Person¬ 
ally, Mr. Blaine has organized no army of delegates, 
and certainly has made no effort to control them dur¬ 
ing epochs of inaction. He has had generals, but they 
have not been of his appointing. The maintenance of 
his strength in three successive conventions would 
have been a task worthy the labor of the shrewdest 
political manager, but it was not due to masters of the 
art of politics. The demand for Mr. Blaine’s nomina- 





BEFORE THE CGHVEXT/OXS OF iSy6 AXT> 1880 . l 6 l 

tion has risen from a permanent sentiment in his favor 
among men who were not officers in the Republican 
organization, and whose share in elections consisted in 
casting an unbought ballot at the preliminary caucus 
and at the polls. This is admitted by his antagonists, 
and surely constitutes tlie kind of support which its 
object should be most glad to own, and which, as has 
been proved, is the one species of allegiance impossi¬ 
ble to defeat. Mr. Blaine has been solicited at the 
gathering of each convention to lend his followers the 
strength of his presence. It is a move in which other 
candidates have found no impropriety, and which, in Mr. 
Blaine’s case, would have had an especial influence. But 
he has steadily refused, r.nd in the three contests in which 
his name has been used, aloof from the strife, has borne 
himself with singular modesty, calmness, and dignity. 

“ One element in his nature ” says one who knows him, 
“ impresses itself on my mind in a very emphatic manner, 
and tliat is his coolness and self-possession at the most 
exciting crises. I happened to be in his library in 
Washington when the balloting was going on in Cin¬ 
cinnati on that hot July day in 1876. A telegraph in¬ 
strument was on his library table, and Mr. Sherman, his 
private secretary, a deft operator, was manipulating its 
key. Dispatches came from dozens of friends giving the 
last votes, which only lacked a few of a nomination, and 
everybody predicted the success of Blaine on tlie next 
ballot. Only four persons besides Mr. Sherman were in 
the room. It was a moment of great excitement. The 


JAMES C. EL A EVE. 


162 

next vote was quietly ticked over the wire, and then the 
next announced the nomination of Mr. Hayes. Mr. 
Blaine was the only cool person in the apartment. It 
was such a reversal of all anticipations and assurances 
that self-possession was out of the question except with 
Mr. Blaine. He had just left his bed after two days of 
unconsciousness with sunstroke, but he was as self-pos¬ 
sessed as the portraits on the wall. He merely gave a 
murmur of surprise, and before anybody had recovered 
from the surprise, he had written, in a firm, fluent hand, 
three dispatches—now in my possession—one to Mr. 
Hayes of congratulation ; one to the Maine delegates 
thanking them for their devotion, and another to Eu¬ 
gene Hale and Mr. Frye, asking them to go personally 
to Mr. Hayes, at Columbus, and present his good-will, 
vrith promises of hearty aid in the campaign. The oc¬ 
casion affected him no more than the news of a servant 
quitting his employ would have done. Half an hour 
afterward he was out with Secretary Fish in an open 
carriage, receiving the cheers of the thousands of peo¬ 
ple who w’ere gathered about the telegraph bulletins.” 

On June ist, at Chicago, the New Jersey and Vermont 
delegations declared against the unit rule, and eighteen 
New York delegates signed a protest against the nomi¬ 
nation of General Grant ; twenty-nine members of the 
National Committee also denounced the unit rule. The 
chairman, Senator Cameron, refused to entertain the 
motions of the opposition or to permit appeal from 
the decision of the chair upon the question. The anti- 
third term maj(jrity met next day and adopted a res- 




BEFORE THE CONVENTIONS OF AND 1880. 163 

olution unseating the chairman, Mr. Cameron. At the 
request of Senator Conkling General Arthur made an 
effort to conciliate the disaffected members, and a com¬ 
promise followed by which the unit rule was abandoned 
in forming the temporary organization. 

On June 2d the convention organized, George F. Hoar, 
of Massachusetts, being chosen temporary chairman, 
and the committee voted to propose his name for per¬ 
manent chairman. Mr. Conger, of Michigan, one of Mr. 
Blaine’s supporters, was made chairman of the Com¬ 
mittee on Credentials. General Garfield, as every one 
remembers, received the appointment to the chairman¬ 
ship on Rules, and on the following day reported the 
admirable code which guided the convention. It did 
not include the unit rule. Little business of interest 
was transacted on Friday and Saturday. At the night 
session, Saturday, the nominations were made. When 
Maine was called James F. Jay, chairman of the INIichi- 
gan delegation, responded, making a speech for Mr. 
Blaine which created an enthusiasm disproportionate 
to its value. Ilis manner of delivery was unfortunate 
and did not command the attention of the convention, 
but the Blaine delegates cheered with no less hearty 
will at the mention of their candidate’s name. Mr. 
Pixley, of California, seconded the nomination in a 
sound and pointed speech. At its close Mr. Frye, of 
Maine, appeared at Mr. Hoar’s side, and the chairman 
said Mr. Frye asked unanimous consent to be allowed 
to speak for two minutes. It was granted, and his 
brief but admirably chosen words, filled with genuine 


JAMES G. BLAEVE. 


164 

feeling, were the iiTOSt telling of the day. They were 
interrupted by constant indications of approval. 

The wearisome balloting that followed is familiar to | 5 i 
every reader, but that it may be seen with what stead¬ 
fastness Mr. Blaine’s friends clung to him a tabulated 
statement of the thirty-six ballots is given herewith 







i 



3 

r—i 


1 

i 0 

1 . 

' -P 

, -P* 

•P 



■P 

4J 

! ■*r* 


•4J 

0 

■tJ 

3, 

4J 

0 

0 

IS 

1 '0 

0 

3 

0 

1 15 

' 1 

'3 


ci 

13 

1? 

13 

1 

! 0 


Xi 

IS 

C3 

-Q 

-Q 

.0 

M 

is 

Si 

2 

H 

I ^ 

1 

pm 

a 

\ ^ 

, m 

A 

A 

mm 

M 

1 



rs 







w 

1 ® 


« 


i ^ 

w 

0 


1 30 


H 


fO 


ft 

0 



Q 

1 H 

1 H 

H 

H 

H 

H 


H 

i ^ 

James A. Garfield... 


1 

1 

1 

1 

2 

2 

1 

2 

2 

2 

1 

1 



i... 



Ulysses S. Grant.... 

304 

305 

305 

'305 

305 

305 

305 

300 308 

305 

305 

304 

305 305 

309 306 

303 

305 

James G. Blaine .... 

284 282 

282 

'281 

281 

280 

281 

284 282 

282 

28] 

283 

285 285 

281 283 

284 

,283 

John Sherman. 

93 

94 

93 

95 

95 

95 

94 

91 

90 

92 

93 

92 

89 

•89 

88 

88 

90 

!)1 

Elihu B. Washbnrne. 

31 

31 

31 

31 

31 

31 

31 

32 

32 

32 

32 

33 

33 

35 

36 

: 36 

36 

35 

George F. Edmunds. 

34 

32 

32 

32 

32 

32 

32 

31 

31 

31 

31 

31 

31 

31 

3P 31 

31 

31 

William Windom ... 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

1 

Rutherford B. Hayes. 










1 

1 





George W. McCrary. 



... 








1 






Roscoe Conkling .... 


















John F. Hartranft .. 



















Edmund T. Davis... 

















1 


Philip H. Sheridan . 


















Benjamin Harrison . 



1 


1 














Total. 

755 755 

7 5 

755 

- 

755 

755 

755 

755 755 

755 

755 

755 

755 

755 

755 754 

755 

755 

Necessary to choice . 

378 378 378 378 

1 1 1 

ms 

378 

378 378 378^378 

37'8 378 

• 

::;78 

378.378*378 

1 1 

378 

378 




. 


. 


4^ 



-P 










0 

"3 

0 

0 

p 

_o 

0 


13 

0 

2 

0 

"3 

3 

. 

-p 

+i 

p 

w 

0 

0 

0 

"o 



o3 

'cS 

43 

Si 


is 

13 




cS 

0 


M 

Pm 



,0 

rs 



M 

H 


0^ 

pi 

mp 


.Q 1 


mm 

A 

M 


C: 

0 

TH 

V 

N 


iri 



cc 





CO 





H 

0? 


« 

« 

s? 


« 

0? 



CO 

CO 

M 

CO 

M 

CO 


James A. Garfield... 

1 

1 

1 

1 

2 

0 

/V 

2 

2 

2 

2 

2 

2 

1 


1 

17 

2.501.399 

Ulysses S. Grant.... 

305 

308 305 

305 

304 

305 302 

303 

806 307 305 

306 308 30!) 309 ,312 

313 

306 

James G. Blaine_ 

279 

270 

276 

275 

275 

279 

281 

280 

277 

279 278 

279 276 276 276 275 

57 

42 

John Sherman. 

90 

93 

90 

‘.17 

97; 

93 

94 

93 

93 

91 116 

120 118 117 100 

107 

99 

.3 

Elihu B. Washbnrne. 

32 

35 


35 

36i 

35 

35 

3(i 

36 

35 

35 

33 

37 

44 

44 

30 

23 

5 

George F. Edmunds. 

31 

31 

31 

31 

31 

31 

31 

31 

31 

31 

12 

11 

11 

11 

11 

11 

11 


William Windom.... 
Rutherford B. Hayes. 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

7 

4 

3 

3 

4 

4 

3 


George W. McCrary . 
Roscoe Conkling .... 













1 






John F. Hartranft.. 
Edmund T. Davis... 
Philip PI. Sheridan.. 

1 

1 

1 

1 








1 








Benjamin Harrison . 


















Total. 

755 

755 

7.55 

755 

755 

755 

755 

755 

755 

755 

755 

755 

755 



756 

756 

755 



iOD 

1 


NecesFar.v to choice . 

378 

or'o 
*> i i’' 

378 

378 

378 

378 

378 

378 

378 

378 

378 

378 

378 378 378 

379 

^9 

378 
























































































































BEFORE THE COxVVEKTiOHS OF 1876 ^/yW) 1880. 165 

Tht)se who were engaged in the effort to nominate 
General Grant were scarcely more faithful. On the 
first ballot it will be seen Mr. Blaine was the choice of 
284 delegates and from this his support did not appreci¬ 
ably fail until the 19th ballot, when the number was 279. 
His vote fell only once as low as 270 ; until the last two 
ballots, with this exception, it was not less than 275. 

The dogged perseverance which characterized the 
third term men and forbade them to assist in the nomi¬ 
nation of another candidate, however liopeless the for¬ 
tunes of their own, was not emulated by those who 
through 34 ballots cast their votes steadily for Mr. 
Blaine. When it became evident that the man of their 
choice could not become the nominee of the convention 
a wise spirit of moderation prevailed, and the vote of the 
Blaine delegation was cast almost entire for General 
Garfield. But for this act Garfield could not have been 
nominated. If it was a surrender, it was the kind of 
surrender which carries with it something of the lustre 
of victory. 


XVI. 


SECRETARY OF STATE. 

General Garfield’s selection of Mr. Blaine for the 
first position in his Cabinet was not the outcome of his 
efforts in his cause during the campaign. Many others 
might have been as properly chosen on that score. It 
was made in recognition of his fitness for the post, and 
as a compliment to a trusted friend. When he visited 
Washington soon after the election he wrote Mr. Blaine 
appointing a meeting with him in that city about No¬ 
vember 24th. The ex-Senator reached Washington 
November 26th. In the course of the colloquy which 
followed General Garfield offered him the State Depart¬ 
ment. Mr. Blaine was surprised by this honor. “I 
was hardly prepared for it,” he told the President-elect., 
“ I do not know how to make answer. I would like 
some time for reflection and consultation.” General 
Garfield, though urging him to accept, readily granted 
him space for thought, and Mr. Blaine asked the advice 
of his intimate friends. They were inclined to think he 
would do best to accept the place. But Mr. Blaine did 
not yet decide to take the charge. He said : “ If the 


SEC/^ETAJ^Y OF STATE. 


167 

sentiment of the country indorses the selection General 
Garfield has made, I will accept the office, otherwise not.” 
It began to be announced through the press that the 
offer had been made, and the tone of newspaper com¬ 
ment was so favorable that Mr. Blaine accepted the re¬ 
sponsibilities of the State Department, witliout more 
hesitation. His letter of acceptance best gives the rea¬ 
sons which led him to make this determination 

“Washington, December 20, 1880. 

“ My Dear Garfield ; Your generous inidtation to 
enter your Cabinet as Secretary of State has been un¬ 
der consideration for more than three weeks. The 
thought had really never occurred to my mind until at 
our late conference you presented it with such cogent 
arguments in its favor and with such warmth of personal 
friendship in aid of your kind offer. 

“ I know that an earlv answer is desirable, and I have 
waited only long enough to consider the subject in all 
its bearings, and to make up my mind, definitely and 
conclusively. I now say to you, in the same cordial 
spirit in which you have invited me, that I accept the 
position. 

“ It is no affectation for me to add that I make this 
decision, not for the honor of the promotion it gives me 
in the public service, but because I think I can be use¬ 
ful to the country and to the party ; useful to you as 
the responsible leader of the party and the great head 
of the Government. 


i68 


JAxMES G. BLAINE. 


“ I am influenced somewhat, perhaps, by tlie sliower 
of letters I have received urging me to accept, written to 
me in consequence of the mere unauthorized new’spaper 
report that you had been pleased to offer me the place. 
While I have received these letters from all sections of 
the Union, I have been especially pleased and even sur¬ 
prised at the cordial and widely extended feeling in my 
favor throughout New England, where I had expected 
to encounter local jealousy and perhaps rival aspiration. 

“ In our new relation I shall give all that I am and all 
that I canjiope to be, freely and joyfully, to your ser¬ 
vice. You need no pledge of my loyalty in heart and 
in act. I should be false to myself did I not prove true 
both to the great trust you confide to me and .to your 
own personal and political fortunes in the present and 
in the future. Your administration must be made brill¬ 
iantly successful and strong in the confidence and pride 
of the people, not at all directing its energies for re- 
election, and yet compelling that result by the logic of 
events and by the imperious necessities of the situation. 

To that most desirable consummation I feel that, 
next to yourself, I can possibly contribute as much , in¬ 
fluence as any other one man. I say this not from egotism 
or vainglory, but merely as a deduction from a plain 
analysis of the political forces which have been at work 
in the country for five years past, and which have been 
significantly shown in two great national conventions. 

1 accept it as one of the happiest circumstances con- 

/ 

iiected with this affair that in allying my political for- 


SF.C/y'ETA/n' OF STAFF. 


169 


tunes with yours—or rather for the time merging mine 
in yours—my heart goes with my head, and that I carry 
to you not only political support but personal and de¬ 
voted friendship. I can but regard it as somewhat re¬ 
markable that two men of the same age, entering Con¬ 
gress at the same time, inlluenced by the same aims and 
cherishing the same ambitions, should never, for a sin¬ 
gle moment in eighteen years of close intimacy, have 
had a misunderstanding or a coolness, and that our 
friendship has steadily grown with our growth and 
strengthened with our strength. 

“ It is this fact which has led me to the conclusion em¬ 
bodied in this letter ; for however much, my dear Gar¬ 
field, I might admire you as a statesman, I would not 
enter your Cabinet if I did not believe in you as a man 
and love you as a friend. Always faitlifully yours, 

“James G. Blaine.” 

Mr. Blaine's season of service in his new office began 
with the inauguration of the President, March 5, iSSt, 
and was completed when on December 19th of the same 
year he resigned the portfolio of State. In this time it 
was impossible to accomplish anything of importance, 
but the chief of his large-minded plans was near fruition 
when he relinquished his place in the Cabinet. ^ Scarce¬ 
ly four months passed before the President was shot 
down. During the three months that:followed he was in 
constant attendance upon his bedside, and when he 
died the short time during which he continued in office 


JAMES G. B LA I EE. 


170 

was of little value in carrying out his designs—the 
friendly aid and countenance of him under whom they 
had been conceived being lacking. But the brevity of 
the time given for maturing his policy being considered 
it may be traced with some distinctness, and his inten¬ 
tions at least may be set down with confidence. That 
policy, in accordance with its author’s character, was de¬ 
cided but pacific. It contemplated the conclusion of 
peace in South America, and looked to the prevention 
of future wars in both of the Americas. Its subordi¬ 
nate object was the cultivation of such amicable rela^ 
tions with the South American States as would lead to 
a large increase of trade with them. It was a broad 
and enlightened line of conduct for the United States, 
and the dangers which its adversaries have found lurk¬ 
ing behind it are the discoveries of active and easily 
alarmed imaginations. 

It was in regard to the relations with England likely 
to be brought about by pursuance of this policy that the 
prophetic fancies of these persons were exercised. The 
issue with that nation arose upon the proposition made 
by the Colombian Republic to the European Powers 
that they should join in guaranteeing the neutrality of 
the Panama Canal. Acting under the advice of his 
Secretary, President Garfield early in his term reminded 
the governments of Europe that the United States had 
secured exclusive rights with the country through which 
the canal was to be built, and that the suggested guaran¬ 
tee would be futile, and not without offence to the 


SECRETARY OF STATE. 


171 

United States. These exclusive rights made it neces¬ 
sary that the guarantee of this country should be se¬ 
cured before it was asked from abroad. This state¬ 
ment of the position of the Government was directly in 
the line of President Garfield’s inaugural address, and 
if it was in any degree mistaken, history will show that 
his concern in it was quite equal to his Secretary’s. 
He said that he repeated the expressions of his prede¬ 
cessor in declaring that it was “the right and duty of 
the United States to assert and maintain sucli super¬ 
vision and authority over any interoceanic canal across 
the isthmus that connects North and South America as 
Avill protect our national interests.” The United States 
liad in the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850 made provis¬ 
ions with Great Britain as to the Isthmus, and Mr. 
Blaine made formal proposal that all agreements made 
in it, not in harmony with the privileges and guarantee 
secured by the convention entered into between the 
United States and the Colombian Republic, be abro- 
Cfated. It was Mr. Blaine’s contention that the Clavton- 
Bulwer treaty gave England for all essential purposes 
the control of any interoceanic waterway which might 
be cut through the Panama Isthmus ; for England’s su¬ 
perior naval power would render any opposition of the 
United States upon the water fruitless. Having agreed 
not to fight in the Isthmus nor to fortify the mouths 
of any canal that might be built across it in the event 
of a contest with England, this country, urged Mr. 
Blaine, would be placed under a disadvantage so deci- 


1/2 JAMES G. BLAINE. 

ded that struggle would be useless. “ The treaty,” he 
wrote, “commands this Government not to use a single 
regiment of troops to protect its interests in connection 
with the interoceanic canal, but to s’urrender the transit 
to the guardianship and control of the English navy.” 

“The logic of this paper,” says an excellent authority, 
“ was unanswerable from an American point of view. If 
tlie Monroe doctrine be anything more than a tradition, 
the control of the Panama Canal must not be allowed to 
pass out of American hands ; and since the country hav¬ 
ing the most powerful navy is the real guardian of the 
freedom of an interoceanic canal under any system of 
international guarantees, or In the absence of treaty law, 
the Panama Canal, as Mr. Blaine said, under the Ciay- 
ton-BuIwer treaty would be surrendered, if not in form 
yet in effect, to the control of Great Britain.” 

Said Mr. Curtis in Ilarpei's Weekly: “The letter is a 
temperate and dignified document, stating our position 
with blended spirit and courtesy and decision. It is 
capitally adapted to meet any such proposition as a 
joint European protectorate, had it been advanced. But 
whether the project was merely a tenative rumor or a 
design seriously entertained, the letter has sufficed to 
arrest it, and it is another illustration of the skill and 
ability with which Mr. Blaine has managed the depart¬ 
ment confided to him. He has what may be called the 
American instinct, an essential quality in our foreign 
secretary, yet restrained in its official expression by an 
equally American tact and good sense.” 


SECRE'I'AI^y OF STATE. 


173 


But the act by which Mr. Blaine’s administration of 
his office will be best remembered is his invitation to 
the republics of South America to come together at 
Washington in a Peace Congress with the United States. 
The letter in which he made this proposition is well 
worth attention : 

“Department of State, 
“Washington, November 29, 1881. 

“Sir : The attitude of the United States with rejrard 
to the question of general peace on the xVmerican con¬ 
tinent is well known through its persistent efforts for 
years past to avert the evils of warfare, or, the efforts 
failing, to bring positive conflicts to an end through pa¬ 
cific counsels, or the advocacy of impartial arbitration. 
This attitude has been consistently maintained, and al¬ 
ways with such fairness as to leave no room for the im¬ 
puting to our Government any motive except the hu¬ 
mane and disinterested one of saving the kindred States 
on the American continent from the burdens of war. 
The position of the United States as the leading power 
of the New World might well give to its Government 
the claim to authoritative utterance for the purpose of 
quieting discord among its neighbors, wdth all of whom 
the most friendly relation exists. Nevertheless, the good 
offices of this Government are not, and have not, at any 
time, been tendered with a show of compulsion or dic¬ 
tation, but only as exhibiting the solicitous good-will 
of a common friend. 


174 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


“ For some years past a growing disposition has been 
manifested by certain States of Central and South Amer¬ 
ica to refer disputes affecting grave questions of inter¬ 
national relationship and boundaries to arbitration rather 
than to the sword. It has been on several such occasions 
a source of profound satisfaction to the Government of 
the United States to see that this country is, in a large 
measure, looked to by all the American powers as their 
friend and mediator. 

“The just and impartial counsel of the President in 
such cases has never been withheld, and his efforts have 
been rewarded by the prevention of sanguinary strife, 
or angry contentions between people whom we regard 
as brethren. 

“ The existence of this growing tendency convinces 
the President that the time is ripe for a proposal that 
shall enlist the good-will and active co-operation of all 
tlie States of the Western hemisphere, both North and 
South, in the interest of humanity, and for the com¬ 
mon weal of nations. He conceives that none of the 
governments of America can be less alive than our own to 
the dangers and horrors of a state of war, and especially 
of war between kinsmen. He is sure that none of the 
chiefs of governments on the continent can be less sensi¬ 
tive than he is to the sacred duty of making every en¬ 
deavor to do away with the chances of fratricidal strife. 
And he looks with hopeful confidence to such active as¬ 
sistance from them as will help to show the broadness of 
our common humanity, and the strength of the ties 


SEC/^ETA/^Y OF STATE. 1/5 

which bind us all together as a great and harmonious 
system of American commonwealths. 

“ Impressed by these views, the President extends 
to all the independent countries of North and South 
America an earnest invitation to participate in a gen¬ 
eral congress to be held in the city of Washington on 
the 24th day of November 1882, for the purpose of con¬ 
sidering and discussing the methods of preventing war 
between the nations of America. He desires that the 
attention of the congress shall be strictly confined to 
this one great object, that its sole aim shall be to seek 
a way of permanently averting the horrors of cruel and 
bloody combat between countries oftenest of one blood 
and speech ; or the even worse calamity of internal 
commotion and civil strife ; that it shall regard the 
burdensome and far-reaching consequences of such 
struggles, the legacies of exhausted finances, of op¬ 
pressive debt, of onerous taxation, of ruined cities, of 
paralyzed industries, of devastated fields, of ruthless 
conscription, of the slaughter of men, of the grief of 
the widow and orphan, of embittered resentments tliat 
long survive those who provoked them, and heavily 
afflict the innocent generations that come after. 

‘‘The President is especially desirous to have it un¬ 
derstood that in putting forth this invitation the United 
States does not assume the position of counselling, or 
attempting through 'the voice of the congress to coun¬ 
sel, any determinate solution of existing questions 
which may now divide any of the countries of America. 


176 


JAMES G. BE A EVE. 


Such questions cannot properly come before the con- 
giess. Its mission is higher. It is to provide for the 
mtei-est of all in the future, not to settle the individual 
diifeiences of the present. For this reason especially 
the President has indicated a day for tlie assembling of 
the congress so far in the future as to leave good ground 
foi hope that by the time named the present situation 
on the South Pacific coast will be happily terminated, 
and that those engaged in the contest may take peace¬ 
able part in the discussion and solution of the gen¬ 
eral question affecting in an equal degree the well¬ 
being of all. 

It seems also desirable to disclaim in advance any 
purpose on the part of the United States to prejudge 
the issues to be presented to the congress. It is far 
fiom the intent of this Government to appear before the 
congress as in any sense the protector of its neighbors, 
or the predestined and necessary arbitrator of their 
disputes. The United States will enter into the delib¬ 
erations of the congress on the same footing with the 
other powers represented, and with the loyal determina¬ 
tion to approach any proposed solution not only in its 
own interest, but as a single member among many co¬ 
ordinate and co-equal States. So far as the influence 
of this Government may be potential, it will be exerted 
in the dfrection of conciliating whatever conflicting in. 
terests of blood or government or historical tradition 
may necessarily come together in response to a call 
embracing such vast and diverse elements. 


SKCAV^J'AKV OF S 7 'A 7 'F. 


1/7 


“You will present these views to the Minister of 
Foreign Relations of Mexico, enlarging, if need be, in 
such terms as will readily occur to you, upon the great 
mission which it is in the power of the proposed con¬ 
gress to accomplish in the interest of humanity, and 
upon the firm purpose of the United States to maintain 
a position of the most absolute and impartial friendship 
toward all. You will thereupon tender to his Excel¬ 
lency the President of the Mexican Republic a formal 
invitation to send two commissioners to the congress, 
provided with such powers and instructions on behalf 
of their government as will enable them to consider the 
questions brought before that body within the limit of 
submission contemplated by the invitation. 

“ The United States, as well as the other powers, will 
in like manner be represented by two commissioners, 
so that impartialitypuid equ? lity will be amply secured 
in the proceedings of the cc .gres^. 

“ Ill delivering Miis iuvit..tion through the Minister of 
Foreign Affairs, you will read this dispatch to him, and 
leave with him a copy, intimating that an answer is de¬ 
sired by this Government as promptly as the just consid¬ 
eration of so important a proposition will permit. 

“ I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 

“ James G. H la ink.” 

The fair-minded reader of the foregoing will hardiy 
have found a menace in it to the public peace and well¬ 
being ; but Mr. Frelinghuysen apparently did, for upon 


12 


178 JAMES G. BLAINE. 

his appointment to Mr. Blaine’s place in the Cabinet he 
reversed his entire policy with all speed. 

I 

This remarkable action, opposed to diplomatic usage, 
radically lowered the standing of the United States Gov¬ 
ernment with the South American States, and under the 
laissez-faire policy of Secretary Frelinghuysen, Chili 
made outrageous terms with her vanquished foe and 
took to herself so much territory as pleased her. It left 
Mr. Blaine in the unfortunate position of having pro¬ 
posed and entered upon a course of action which was so 
suddenly abandoned as to leave it without fair trial.- He 
was judged by the ragged ends of his policy. 

In justice to himself he addressed a letter to President 
Arthur, January 3, 1882, vindicating his imperfected 
work. It must be given here in full: 

The sim^estion of a conofress of all the American na- 
tions to assemble in the city of Washington was warmly 
approved by your predecessor. The assassination of 
July 2d prevented his issuing the invitations to the 
American States. After your accession to the Presi¬ 
dency, I acquainted you with the project and submitted 
to you a draft for such an invitation. You received the 
suggestion with the most appreciative consideration, 
and after carefully considering the form of the invita¬ 
tion directed it to be sent. It was accordingly dis¬ 
patched in November, to the independent governments 
of America, North and South, including all, from the 
Empire of Brazil to the smallest republic. In a commu¬ 
nication addressed by the present Secretary of State, on 


SECRETARY OE STATE. 


179 


January 9th, to Mr. Trescot, and recently sent to the Sen¬ 
ate, I was greatly surprised to find a proposition look¬ 
ing to the annulment of these invitations, and I was still 
more surprised when I read the reasons assigned. If I 
correctly apprehend the meaning of his words it is that 
we might offend some European powers if we should 
hold in the United States a congress of the ‘selected 
nationalities ’ of America. 

* 

“ This is certainly a new position for the United States 
to assume, and one which I earnestly beg you will not 
permit this country to occupy. The European powers 
assemble in congress whenever an object appears to 
them of sufficient importance to justify it. I have 
never heard of their consulting the Government of the 
United States in regard to the propriety of their so as¬ 
sembling, nor have I ever known of their inviting an 
American representative to be present. Nor would 
there, in my judgment, be any good reason for their so 
doing. Two Presidents of the United States in the year 
1881 adjudged it to be expedient that the American 
powers should meet in congress, for the sole purpose of 
agreeing upon some basis for arbitration of differences 
that may arise between them, and for the prevention, as 
far as possible, of war in the future. If that movement 
is now to be arrested for fear that it may give offence 
in Europe, the voluntary humiliation of this Govern¬ 
ment could not be more complete, unless we should 
press the European governments for the privilege of 
holding the congress. I cannot conceive how the 


a. JU.A/XE. 


i£o 

United States could be placed in a less enviable position 
than would be secured by sending in November a cor¬ 
dial invitation to all the American governments to meet 
in Washington for the sole purpose of concerting meas¬ 
ures of peace, and in January recalling the invitation 
for fear it might create ‘jealousy and ill-will’ on the 
part of monarchical governments in Europe. It would 
be difficult to devise a more effective mode for makins: 
enemies of the American Government, and it would cer¬ 
tainly not add to our prestige in the European world. 
Nor can I see, Mr. President, how European govern¬ 
ments should feel ‘jealousy and ill-will’ toward the 
United States because of an effort on our own part to 
insure lasting peace between the nations of America, 
unless, indeed, it be to the interest of European powers 
that American nations should at intervals fall into war, 
and bring reproach on republican government. But 
from that very circumstance I see an* additional and 
powerful motire for American governments to be at 
peace among themselves. 

“The United States is indeed at peace with all the 
world, as Mr. Frelinghuysen well says, but there are and 
have been serious troubles between other American na¬ 
tions. Peru, Chili, and Bolivia have been for more 
than two years engaged in a desperate conflict. It was 
the fortunate intervention of the United States last 
spring that averted war between Chili and the Arc^en- 

O 

tine Republic. Guatemala is at this moment asking’ the 
United States to interpose its good offices with Mexico 



SECRErAKY OF SI'ATE:. 


i8i 


to keep off war. These important facts were all com¬ 
municated in your last message to Congress. It is the 
existence or the menace of these wars that influenced 
President Garfield—and as I supposed influenced your¬ 
self—to desire a friendly conference of all the nations of 
America to devise methods of permanent peace, and 
consequent prosperity for all. Shall the United States 
now turn back, hold aloof, and refuse to exert its great 
moral power for the advantage of its weaker neighbors ? 

“ If you have not formally and finally recalled the in¬ 
vitation to the Peace Congress, Mr. President, I beg you 
to consider well the effect of so doing. The invitation 
was not mine. It was yours. I performed only the part 
of the Secretary—to advise and to draft. You spoke 
in the name of the United States to each of the inde¬ 
pendent nations of America. To revoke that invitation 
for any cause would be embarrassing ; to revoke it for 
the avowed fear of ‘jealousy and ill-will’ on the part 
of European powers would appeal as little to American 
pride as to American hospitality. Those you have in¬ 
vited may decline, and liaving now cause to doubt their 
welcome will, perhaps, do so. This would break up the 
Congress, but it would not touch their dignity. Beyond 
the philanthropic and Christian ends to be obtained by 
an American conference devoted to peace and good¬ 
will among men, we might well hope for inaterial ad¬ 
vantages, as the result of a better understanding and 
closer friendship with the nations of America. At 
present the condition of trade between the United States 


i 82 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


and its American neighbors is unsatisfactory to us,, and 
even deplorable. According to the official statistics of 
our own Treasury Department, the balance against us 
in tliat trade last year was ^120,000,000—a sum greater 
than the yearly product of all the gold and silver mines 
in the United States. This vast balance was paid by us 
in foreign exchange, and a very large proportion of it 
went to England, where shipments of cotton, provisions, 
and breadstuffs supplied the money. If anything should 
change or check the balance in our favor in European 
trade, our commercial exchanges with Spanish America 
would drain us of our reserve of gold at a rate exceed¬ 
ing ^100,000,000 per annum, and would probably pre¬ 
cipitate a suspension of specie payment in this country. 
Such a result at home might be worse tlutn a little jeal¬ 
ousy and ill-will abroad. I do not say, Mr. President, 
that the holding of a Peace Congress will necessarily 
change the currents of trade, but it will bring us into 
kindly relations with all the American nations ; it will 
promote the reign of law and peace and order ; it will 
increase production and consumption, and will stimu¬ 
late the demand for articles which American manufac¬ 
turers can furnish with profit. It will at all events be a 
friendly and auspicious beginning in the direction of 

American influence and American trade in a large field 

\ 

which we have hitherto greatly neglected, and which has 
practically been monopolized by our commercial rivals 
in Europe. 


“ James G. Blaine.” 


SECRETARY OF STA'TE. 


183 


In pursuance of his pacific policy, Mr. Blaine en¬ 
deavored to bring about peace after the Chili-Peru war, 
on terms which should not be overbearing to the con¬ 
quered States. Certain misunderstandings, however, 
caused the United States ministers to fail in carrying 
out the Secretary’s instructions, and special envoys ac¬ 
credited to the three countries were despatched upon a 
mission of peace. Before they reached Chili, Mr, Blaine 
resigned, and his successor, in his hasty overturning of 
his policy, discredited the envoys. They arrived only to 
find their mission emptied of all sighificance, and they 
could only return, leaving such impressions of the con¬ 
stancy and good faith of the United States Government 
as they might. 

Of Mr. Blaine’s administration a manly and straight¬ 
forward assertion of American rights was the distin¬ 
guishing characteristic. If that is a dangerous thing 
we must face the danger, and no honest American 
should wish to shirk it. All new ideas are filled with 
peril. Burke had several perilous ideas ; so did Pitt. 
Dangerous ideas occurred to Washington and Lincoln 
more frequently than safe ones, as the conservatives of 
their times looked at ideas. But how many of the pre¬ 
cious facts which those dangerous ideas bought are we 
willing to lose ? Senator Harrison spoke for the truest 
Americans when he said at a meeting gathered in Cin¬ 
cinnati to ratify the nomination : 

“Some timid people fear that Mr. Blaine will involve 
the country in war. Some over-cautious business men 


184 fiiMES G. BLAINE. 

affect to believe that the even current of their money¬ 
getting will be disturbed by the aggressive foreign 
policy which they suppose he would inaugurate. My 
fellow-citizens, no one has ever accused Mr. Blaine of 
being a fool. He has some ideas upon foreign affairs 
and I am glad of it—they are rare. He had begun to 
organize them into a system when he laid down the 
portfolio of State. Now, what sort of a foreign policy 
did his despatches foreshadow ? One in which this 
country should play the bully ? One in which we shall, 
without cause, infult or deny just rights to any foreign 
government ? Not at all ; do Ave not all desire that we 
shall have a manly foreign policy—one that shall not 
be characterized by such timidity as not to lift a manly 
protest when any wrong is done in any foreign country 
to the humblest American citizen ? [Applause.] What 
was it Mr. Blaine proposed to do ? Briefly and chiefly, 
he proposed to call 'a congress for consultation as to 
the mutual interests of the nations of the continent ; 
a meeting of our sister republics, not for the purpose 
of aggression. Far from it. It was that we might ex¬ 
ercise our friendly offices in the interests of peace and 
stable government among these people, where govern¬ 
ment has been so unstable, where the existing regimes 
are so frequently overturned as to bring prostration 
and desolation to all private enterprises. It was that 
we might extend a kindly hand to these people, to help 
them on to a higher civilization, and that we might in 
return enjoy some of that great commerce which Great 


SECRETARY OF STATE. 


185 


Britain monopolizes to-day. We are living near these 
people ; they are striving to imitate us in the experi¬ 
ment of free government, and yet we are without access 
or influence. When a distinguished citizen of this State 
was by President James Garfield appointed Charge 
d’Affaires at Montevideo, in Uruguay, in order to get 
to his post of duty he had to take a British steamer 
from New York to Liverpool, and another British 
steamer from Liverpool to Montevideo. Notwithstand¬ 
ing we are here on the same general coast, there was no 
direct communication between this country and that. 
It has been a standing shame that our relations to these 
South American governments have been such that nei¬ 
ther we nor they have enjoyed any of the benefits of good 
neighborhood. 

“iNIr. Blaine proposes to remedy this confessed omis¬ 
sion in our foreign policy. A congress of these nations 
was the leading feature of his brief administradon of 
tlie State Department. There was nothing to disturb 
business in that policy, but much promise of a new 
market for our surplus. Nobody wants war—it is a 
last resort. But every self-respecting American does 
believe in maintaining the proper dignity, honor, and 
influence of this great nation.” 

The ado wliich was made about the Landreau claim, 
the Credit Industriel, and the Shipherdjolly, need not 
make part of this record. Mr. Blaine’s connection with 
tliem was unimportant. In the case of Landreau, he 
urged a claim of undoubted justice ; the others were in- 


1 86 JAMES G. BLAINE. 

cidents growing out of his administration which will 
doubtless demand treatment when the lives of certain 
other persons come to be written, but which are of no 
moment to a biography of Mr. Blaine. 


XVII. 


AT GARFIELD’S BEDSIDE. 

Mr. Blaine’s name is peculiarly associated with the 
memorable crime of July 2, 1881. Upon him, during 
the long, sad weeks of suspense which followed, the 
grieved and doubtful heart of the nation reposed. * 

As the President and Mr. Blaine drove to the station 
together the President was in an uncommonly joyous 
mood, his companion has said. He was to visit his alma 
maicr^ and was looking forward to an agreeable holiday, 
removed from the oppressive summer heat of Washing¬ 
ton, and the renewing of old college friendships in the 
Berkshire Hills. “When the carriage,” says Mr. Blaine, 
in his account of the tragedy, “stopped in front of the 
station on B Street, the President and I left it and entered 
the ladies’ waiting-room, passing through it arm in arm. 
As we went from it into the main room I dropped the 
President’s arm and at that instant two shots were fired. 
I saw a man running and started toward him, but turned 
almost immediately and saw that the President had fall¬ 
en. I then first understood that the shots had been 


i88 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


fired at the President. I sprang toward him with several 
others and raised his head from the floor.” 

As the President fell he exclaimed, ‘‘My God!” 
The Postmaster-General, Secretary Windom, and Sec¬ 
retary Lincoln, who were to accompany President Gar¬ 
field, had arrived earlier and were walking within tlie 
station. When they came hastily in response to a sum- 



tary Blaine, who appeared to be the only calm person 
about, bending over the President and keeping the 
people back. Before the President was removed from 
the station he sent a touching message to his wife at 
Long Branch, where he had expected to join her later. 

Secretary Blaine communicated to Vice-President 
Arthur, who was in New York, the news of the calam¬ 
ity in simple words, and during the day and until the 
Vice-President returned to Washington, kept him in¬ 
formed of the President’s condition by constant bulle¬ 
tins. The Secretary also made known'the sad intelli¬ 
gence to the American ministers abroad, and put them 
into possession from time to time of the physicians’ 
opinions. In his position he was also the recipient Oif 
the messages of condolence and regret sent from everv 
part of the country and by the sovereigns of Europe. 
It fell to him to make answer as well, and he dis¬ 
charged this duty with singular propriety and good 
taste. The telegrams were models of manly simplicity, 
and the nation, which hung in its suspense upon tlie 
slightest word from the bedside of the wounded Pres- 


AT CATT//<:/J)\S BE ns IDE. 189 

idcnt, received his constant bulletins gratefully. Dur¬ 
ing the first day and night, with the other members of 
the Cabinet, he was not absent from the President’s bed¬ 
side, and only retired the next day for a time because 
the physicians thought the presence of any one preju¬ 
dicial to the patient’s condition. 

The Fourth of Ju ly was an anxious day for the conn- 
try. President Garfield seemed to grow' no better, and 
the physicians, w^ho from the first had given little en¬ 
couragement, despaired of his recovery. Mr. Blaine 
telegraphed to John Hay at 5 p.m. : “The condition of 
the President is alarming. I think the best judgment of 
the eminent physicians who w^ere in consultation is he 
wdll not recover. They do not, how’ever, abandon hope, 
and we all cling to the belief that in the good prov¬ 
idence of God his life may. be spared.” Later he is¬ 
sued the following : 

“Executive Mansion, Washington, July 4th, ii r.M. 

“ To the Press : 

“On behalf of the President and Mrs. Garfield I desire 
to make public acknowledgment of the very numerous 
messages of condolence and affection wdiich have been 
received since Saturday morning. From almost every 
State in the Union, from the South as bountifully as 
from the Nortli, and from countries beyond the sea, 
liave come messages of anxious inquiry and tender 
w'ords of sympathy in such numbers that it has been 
found impossible to answer them in detail. I therefore 
ask the newspapers to express for the President and 


190 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


Mrs. Garfield the deep gratitude which they feel for 
the devotion of their fellow-countrymen and friends 
abroad, in their hour of heavy affliction. 

“James G. Blaine, 

“Secretary of State.” 

On the following day he was able to cable James 
Russell Lowell, Minister to England, “ The President 
continues to improve. Af this hour, 4 P.M., his physi¬ 
cians consider his symptoms as most encouraging.” 

The President after this grew slowly better, and 
the Secretary was in constant attendance upon him. 
Through all the fluctuations of hope and fear, he kept 
unintermittent watch, recording the changes in the 
President’s condition in frequent bulletins. When it 
was decided to attempt the removal to Long Branch, he 
smoothed the way as much as possible and assisted in 
planning and carrying out the kindly devices for the pa¬ 
tient’s easy and painless transit. On September 6th the 
journey was safely made. Secretary Blaine’s telegram 
to Minister Lowell upon the arrival of the President at 
Long Branch concluded : “ His fever is in part attrib¬ 
uted to the excitement he felt at the prospect of coming. 
He earnestly desired to leave the White House, and his 
weary eyes welcomed the sight of the sea. The devel¬ 
opments of the next sixty hours arc awaited with solici¬ 
tude.” The President did not immediately grow worse, 
but the weather was very warm and he suffered from it. 
On the 9th, however, Mr. Blaine was able to say that 


AT GARFIELD'S BEDSIDE. 


I9I 

“ his comfort had been promoted by a decided change 
in the weather.” But on the 12th he telegraphed : “ His 
symptoms are not reassuring, and his general condition 
gives rise to anxiety.” During the next day, however, 
there was a change for the better, and Mr. Blaine was 
so much encouraged that he felt warranted in leaving 
the President for a day or two to attend to important 
personal business in Augusta. “ During my absence 
for a short time,” he cabled Minister Lowell, “ Dr. Ag- 
new or Dr. Hamilton will send you a daily report.” 
It was instead sent by Secretary MacVeagh. 

For several days after Mr. Blaine’s departure there 
was little change in the President’s 'condition, and he 
seemed to be gradually gaining ground, but on the i6th 
anxiety was again excited. On the 17th he had a slight 
chill, lasting half an hour. Another chill on the following 
day increased the general concern, and September 19th, 
at half past ten in the evening, he suddenly and unex¬ 
pectedly passed away. 

Secretary Blaine, being informed of the sad fact, made 
haste toward Elberon, reaching it on the following day. 
The Cabinet agreed upon the arrangements for the 
funeral, which were made public in detail by the Secre¬ 
tary of State. 

All the members of the Cabinet went with the body 
to Washington, where for a time it lay in state, and ac¬ 
companied it to Lakewood Cemetery, Cleveland, where 
it was finally deposited. When Congress met after the 
President’s death it cast about for a fit man to deliver 


192 


JAMES G. BLAINE, 


a eulogy of General Garfield, and its choice naturally 
fell to Mr. Blaine. It has been called one of the noblest 
performances of his life, and certainly he never spoke to 
so lofty and inspiring a theme. The orator was fortunate¬ 
ly selected. He had known General Garfield for many 
years, he was familiar with his public and private life, in 
his administration he had been at the head, and in the 
public acts of the President his next friend and adviser. 
During his illness he had watched over him with an as¬ 
siduity that outwent mere official duty. He was filled 
with love and admiration for him, even above those who 
from every corner of ihe country were present in spirit 
at the solemn memorial services in which the nation ex¬ 
pressed its grief. He spoke for their sorrowing hearts, 
and in that hour was nearer to them than any save the 
leader they had lost. It was indeed the highest moment 
of Mr. Blaine’s life ; and if he had done nothing else, if 
he had not been the faithful supporter of the wounded 
President during his illness—if he had come into the 
world and gone from it leaving nothing but the record 
of those few adequate words in praise of his friend, 
he could never cease to be a dear and memorable figure 
to Americans. 

“At ten o’clock on Monday, February 27, 1882, the 
doors of the House of Representatives were opened to 
holders of tickets for the memorial services, and in less 
than half an hour the galleries were filled. The spec¬ 
tators, many of whom were ladies, were generally attired 
in black. No mourning was displayed in the hall, even 


A7' CAR/'/P:Ln\S BEDSIDE. 


193 


the full-length portrait of the late President being 
undraped. The three front rows of desks had been 
replaced by chairs for the use of the invited guests, 
and the Marine Band was stationed in the lobby, back 
of the Speaker’s desk. 

“ Among the first to arrive were George Bancroft, 
W, \\ . Corcoran, Cyrus W. Field, and Admiral Worden, 
who took seats-directly in front of the Clerk’s desk. 
General Schenck, Governor Iloyt, of Pennsylvania, 
Foster, of Ohio, Porter, of Indiana, Hamilton, of Mary¬ 
land, and Bigelow, of Connecticut, and Adjutant- 
General Harmine, of Connecticut, and many others oc¬ 
cupied seats on the floor. At 11.30 Generals Sherman, 
Sheridan, Hancock, Howard, and Meigs, and Admirals 
Ammen and Rodgers entered at the north door of the 
’chamber and were assigned seats to the left of the 
Speaker’s desk, and a few moments later the members 
of the diplomatic corps, in full regalia, were ushered 
in, headed bv the Hawaiian Minister as dean of the 
corps. The Supreme Court of the District, headed by 
Marshal Henry, arrived next. Mrs. Blaine occupied a 
front seat in the gallery reserved for friends of the 
President. At twelve o’clock the House was called to 
order by Speaker Keifer , and prayer was offered by the 
chaplain. The Speaker then announced that the 
House was assembled and ready to perform its part in 
the memorial services, and the resolutions to that effect 
were read by Clerk McPherson. At 12.10 the Senate 
was announced, and that body, headed by its officers, 

13 



194 JAMES G, BLAINE. 

entered and took seats. The Chief Justice and As¬ 
sociate Justices of the Supreme Court, in their robes 
of office, came next, and were followed by President 
Arthur and his Cabinet. The President took the front 
seat on the right of the presiding officer’s chair, next 
to that occupied by Cyrus W. Field.” 

Senator Sherman and Representative McKinley (Ohio) 
occupied seats at the desk on the right and left of the 
orator of the day. Members of the Society of the Army 
of the Cumberland acted as iishers at the main entrance 
to the Rotunda and in the various corridors leading to 
the galleries. 

At 12.30 the orator of the day was announced, and 
after a short prayer by the Chaplain of the House, F. 
F. Power, President Davis said: “ This day is dedicated 
by Congress for memorial services of the late President 
of the United States, James A. Garfield. I present to 
you the Hon. James G. Blaine, who has been fitly cho¬ 
sen as the orator for this historical occasion.” 

Mr. Blaine then rose, and standing at the clerk’s desk, 
immediately in front of the two presiding officers, de¬ 
livered his eulogy from manuscript. 

He was the central figure in one of the most striking 

m 

scenes which has been observed in the halls of Con¬ 
gress since its first session. The President and his 
Cabinet, the judges in their robes, the distinguished 
guests, the diplomatic corps attired in their varied dress, 
offered a spectacle as brilliant as one is likely to see 
in a republic. The admirable eulogy it is impossible, 


A T GARFIKLD\S BEDSIDE. 


195 


within the brief space of this volume, to give at length, 
and such selections from it as follow are chosen as 
much for their bearing upon the speaker as his 
subject. After discussing Garfield’s ancestry, his early 
days, his army career, and his long and loyal service 
in Congress, he spoke of his industry ; and his words 
upon this trait of General Garfield must engage us. 
He said ; 

“ Those unfamiliar with Garfield’s industry and ig¬ 
norant of the details of his work may, in some degree, 
measure them by the annals of Congress. No one of 
the generation of public men to which lie belonged has 
contributed so much that will be valuable for future ref¬ 
erence. His speeches are numerous, many of them brill¬ 
iant, all of them well studied, carefully phrased and ex¬ 
haustive of the subject under consideration. Collected 
from the scattered pages of ninety royal octavo volumes 
of the Congressional Record they would present an inval¬ 
uable compendium of the political history of the most 
important era through which the National Government 
has ever passed. When the history of this period shall 
be impartially written, when war legislation, measures of 
reconstruction, protection of human rights, amendments 
to the Constitution, maintenance of the public credit, 
steps toward specie resumption, true theories of revenue 
may be reviewed, unsurrounded by prejudice and dis¬ 
connected from partisanism, the speeches of Garfield 
will be estimated at their true value, and will be found 
to comprise a vast magazine of fact and argument, of 


196 


JAMES a. BE A EVE. 

clear analysis and sound conclusion. Indeed, if no 
other authority were accessible, his speeches in the 
Mousse of Representatives from December, 1863, to June, 
1880, would give a well-connected history and complete 
defence of the important legislation of the seventeen 
eventful years that constitute his parliamentary life. 
Far beyond that, his speeches would be found to forecast 
many great measures, yet to be completed—measures 
which he knew were beyond the public opinion of the 
hour, but which he confidently believed would secure 
popular approval within the period of his own lifetime, 
and by the aid of his own efforts.” 

The words which follow have a touch of unconscious 
prophecy which need not to be urged : 

‘‘As a candidate, Garfield steadily grew in popular 
favor. He was met with a storm of detraction at the 
very hour of his nomination, and it continued .with in¬ 
creasing volume and momentum until the close of his 
victorious campaign : 

No might nor greatness in mortality 
Can censure ’scape. Back-wounding calumny 
The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong 
Can tie the gall up in a slanderous tongue ? 

Under it all he was calm, and strong, and confident ; 
never lost his self-possession, did no unwise act, spoke 
no hasty or ill-considered word. Indeed nothing in his 
whole life is more remarkable or more creditable than 
his bearing through those five full months of vitupera- 


A7' GARFIRLD\S BEDSIDE. 


197 


tions—a prolonged agony of trial to a sensitive man, a 
constant and cruel draft upon the powers of moral en¬ 
durance. The great mass of these unjust imputations 
passed unnoticed, and, with the general debris of the 
campaign, fell into oblivion. But in a few instances the 
iron entered his soul, and he died with the injury un¬ 
forgotten if not unforgiven.” 

The eulogy occupied an hour and a half. As Mr. 
Blaine uttered the last solemn words picturing the death 
of the martyred President, “ Let us believe that in the 
silence of tlie receding world he heard the great waves 
breaking on a further shore and felt already upon-his 
wasted brow the breath of the eternal morning,” his 
hearers broke into a storm of applause which was not 
stilled for some moments. The address had been lis¬ 
tened to with the most eager interest and in awed si¬ 
lence. . 


XVIII. 


“TWENTY YEARS OF CONGRESS.” 

When Mr. Blaine laid down the portfolio of the Secre¬ 
tary of State, some curiosity was felt as to what he would 
do. For over twenty-three years he had been in public life, 
and it was thought that, for a time at least, vacancy and 
idleness must overtake him. But Mr. Blaine welcomed 
this period of leisure as an opportunity for carrying out a 
plan long dierished in a mild way. Continuing to live 
in Washington, he began at once the composition of a 
work which he has called “Twenty Years of Congress.” 
He devoted himself assiduously to writing, and was able, 
after little more than two years’ labor, to present to the 
public in April last a thick volume as an earnest of his 
intention. 

When complete it is to be a history of the political 
life of the American people for the years included be¬ 
tween the administrations of Lincoln and Garfield— 
the first ten of which certainly offer a richer field to 
tlie American historian than any other decade save tliat 
of the Revolution. But, strictly, Mr. Blaine’s work, per- 


^^TlVEiVTY YEARS OE COiYGRESS:' 


199 


haps, should not be called a history ; that is an ambi¬ 
tious title, and may be held to imply a little greater dis¬ 
tance from the subject than the writer of “Twenty Years 
of Congress” is at. Yet it is not a volume of mere rem¬ 
iniscence. It is a large and stirring record of events 
with whicli he was actively contemporary, and it is es¬ 
pecially interesting to read of them in the pages of one 
who assisted in bringing them about. The sense of this 
the peruser of the first instalment of “Twenty Years of 
Congress” is glad to find always present to him, and 
this is because Mr. Blaine is clearly himself haunted by 
the pars fait. This gives the book a peculiar value, if it 
deprives it of a certain judicial tone. That is something 
only to be cultivated successfully centuries after the fact; 
but on the side of vividness, of complete apprehension, 
the book is in the highest degree satisfying, and leaves 
the reader much obliged to it for not being history, since 
it brings him so much nearer the event. On the othcM* 
hand, it is not unjileasantly partisan, and often rather 
astonishes one, as in the matter of the presentation of 
the tariff question, by its fairness. 

The story of the war for the Union will always be a 
diflicult one to tell fairly, and no one in our time—cer¬ 
tainly no one who was an actor in it—writing to those 
who foueht it, or waited at home for those who did, is 
likely’to tell it with complete justice. But curiously 
enough one is glad of the lack of this. We are not far 
enough from the war yet to read patiently any account 
which does not espouse one of the sides, and no reader 


200 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


of Mr. Blaine’s “Twenty Years of Congress” would 
liave him less of a loyalist if he could. It is the story 
of those dark four years which is related in this first 
volume—brought down only to the close of the con¬ 
flict—and in reading the graphic pages describing them 
it is impossible not to be freshly impressed Avith the tre 
mendous bearing of the facts touched upon. The book 
is particularly full in its relation of the events Avhich 
brought about the war. They are set compactly before 
the reader, and make such a distinct and comprehensi¬ 
ble record in Mr. Blaine’s presentation as Ave can fancy 
tlie children of to-day congratulating themselves upon 
Avhen their time comes to understand the momentous 
forces Avhich tore the country in the years directly pre¬ 
ceding i860. The events AAdiich make up Mr. Blaine’s 
striking narrative are skilfully marshalled and arranged, 
and the effect is one of singular directness and lucidity. 

The style of the Avork is perhaps rather more terse 
and contained tlian Avould be expected from one Avho 
has been forced to cultivate the fluency of extemporane¬ 
ous public speech, and though it Avould still be no Avorse 
for a little castigation, it is in the main an admirable 
style for the purpose. Mr. Blaine is serA^ed by the val¬ 
uable early training of neAA’spaper Avork, Avhich teaches 
a Avriter many things, but chiefly instructs him in a wise 
solicitude for his readers’ patience. The habit of con¬ 
cise and direct statement learned in that excellent school 
giv^es Mr. Blaine the inestimably precious sense of AA-hat 
may be called the time to stop, Avhich there be eminent 


“ 7iF/’:jV'ry vkars of coa^grfssf 


201 


men who lack. He makes his point squarely and en¬ 
forces it fully, but he does not enforce it too far ; the 
finger is laid upon the spring with a firm touch, is held 
a moment, and at the delicate instant, which is neither 
too soon nor too late, is withdrawn. This modest quality 
of style, which is neither brilliant nor engaging, and 
takes no eye because the essence of its being is retire¬ 
ment, makes, above all its imposing sister qualities, easy 
reading. And this is the praise which comes most 
readily to one’s pen in writing of Mr. Blaine’s book. 
An amiable critic finds it as pleasant reading as a novel, 
but that is a doubtful expression of the fact unless we 
add, a good novel. The style of the volume is, however, 
something more than easy to read. It can be stately 
upon occasion. But the occasions are sparingly chosen, 
and in the midst of its lluency it seldom fails of a kind 
of dignity. 

It is in Chapters I. to VIII. that the causes which led 
to the Civil War arc treated, and this is one of the most 
valuable parts of the volume. Chapter IX. gives the his¬ 
tory of the tariff in this country from the earliest years, 
and copious quotation has been already made from it. 
Chapter X., opening with the election of i860, gives a 
brief summary of the events which followed. Chapters 
XVIII. and XIX. present an admirable sketch of the 
financial acts made necessary by the war, especially the 
issue of paper money and the laying of taxes. The Uni¬ 
ted States banks and the State banks of the time pre¬ 
ceding the war are treated, and the storv of the creation 


202 JAMES G. BLAINE. \ 

I 

1 

of the National Banking system is fully told. A chap-' 
ter is devoted to the admission of West Virginia, and 
the final chapter contains an adequate statement of the ’ 
relations of foreign governments to the United States 
during the war. 

In the course of the volume, Mr. Blaine has often to 
present pictures of men prominent in national politics 
within comparatively recent years. From certain of 
his estimates there must be many dissenters, but on the 
whole, tliey are conceived in a fairly impartial spirit, 
and are in the best taste. These few sentences upon 
Lincoln will be thought just : 

‘‘ Mr. Lincoln united firmness and gentleness in a 
singular degree. He rarely spoke a harsh word. Ready 
to hear argument and always open to conviction, he ad¬ 
hered tenaciously to the conclusions which he had 
finally reached. Altogether modest, he had confidence 
in himself, trusted to the reasoning of his own mind, 
believed in the correctness of his own judgment. Many 
of the popular conceptions concerning him are errone¬ 
ous. No man was further than he from the easy, famil¬ 
iar, jocose character in which he is often painted. While 
he paid little attention to form or ceremony, he was not 
a man with whom liberties could be taken. There was 
but one person in Illinois outside of his own household 
who ventured to address him by his first name. There 
was no one in Washington who ever attempted it. Ap- 
pieciating wit and humor, he relished a good story, es¬ 
pecially if it illustrated a truth or strengthened an argu- 




^^TJVENl'Y YEARS OF CONGRESS^ 20$ 

inent, and he had a vast fund of illustrative anecdote 
which he used with the happiest effect. But the long 
list of vulgar, salacious stories attributed to him were 
retailed only by those who never enjoyed the privilege 

of exchanging a word with him. His life was altogether 

• 

a serious one—inspired by the noblest spirit, devoted to 
the highest aims. Humor was but an incident with him, 
a partial relief to the melancholy which tinged all his 
years. 

“He presented an extraordinary combination of men¬ 
tal and moral qualities. As a statesman he had the lof¬ 
tiest ideal, and it fell to his lot to inaugurate measures 
which changed the fate of millions of living men, of 
tens of millions yet to be born. As a manager of polit¬ 
ical issues, and master of the art of presenting them, he 
lias had no rival in this country unless one.be found 
in Jefferson. The complete discomfiture of his most 
formidable assailants in 1863, especially of those who 
sought to prejudice him before the people on account of 
the arrest of Vallandigham, cannot easily be paralleled 
for shrew'dness of treatment and for keen appreciation 
of the reactionary influences which are certain to con¬ 
trol public opinion. Mr. • Van Buren stands without 
rival in the use of partisan tactics. He operated alto¬ 
gether on men, and believed in self-interest as the main 
spring of human action. Mr. Lincoln’s ability was of a 
far higher and broader character. There was never the 
slif>-htest lack of candor or fairness in his methods. He 
sought to control men through their reason and their 


204 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


conscience. The only art he employed was that of pre¬ 
senting his views so convincingly as to force conviction 
on the minds of his hearer and his readers. . . .” 

The volume has been extremely well received, both 
in the United States and in England, and the publica¬ 
tion of its successor, upon which Mr. Blaine is reported 
to be now engaged, will be looked forward to with 
interest. 











I 





XIX. 


THE NOMINATION. 

The story of the convention of 1884 is fresh in all 
minds ; but for the completeness of this history it is 
proper to set it briefly down here. The calumny which 
had assailed Mr. Blaine before the meeting of the con- 
^ ventions of 1876 and 1880, was not wanting as a pre¬ 
cursor of this ; but it had become rather stale, and was 
taken up spiritlessly by all but one or two newspapers. 
He had twice nearly attained the nomination in spite of 
it ; this time he was nominated in spite of it. The best 
answer that could be given to it, save one, was given 
when 541 Republicans, chosen as representatives of 
their party, pronounced for him as the party standard- 
bearer. No answer but his election could be more 
complete. 

The usual time was consumed in organizing the con¬ 
vention, although there were no such differences to ad¬ 
just as in 1880. The Mahone delegates were admitted 
from Virginia, and Powell Clayton, the Blaine nominee 
for temporary chairman, was defeated by the combina¬ 
tion of the supporters of the President and Senator Ed- 


206 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


munds. A colored man from Mississippi, named Lynch, 
was seated through their efforts. The permanent chair¬ 
man reported by the committee was General John B, 
Henderson. 

The nominating speeches were made on Friday, June 
5th. Augustus Bundage, of Connecticut, nominated 
General Hawley; Senator Cullom, of Illinois, named 
General Logan ; Martin I. Townsend, of New York, 
Arthur; Judge Foraker, of Ohio, Senator Sherman ; and 
ex-Governor Long, of Massachusetts, the name of Sena¬ 
tor Edmunds. The speech in which Judge West, of 
Ohio, nominated Mr. Blaine was a most fortunate and 
brilliant presentation of the history and character of the 
man who became the nominee of the convention. 

“Wlien ‘Maine’was spoken by the deep-voiced secre¬ 
tary,” says a newspaper account, “there was a sudden 
explosion, and in a twinkling the convention was a scene 
of the wildest enthusiasm and excitement. Whole dele¬ 
gations mounted their chairs and led the cheering, which 
instantly spread to the stage and galleries and deepened 
into a roar fully as deep and deafening as the voice of 
Niagara. The scene was indescribable. The air quiv¬ 
ered, the gas-lights trembled, and the walls fairly shook ; 
the flags were stripped from the gallery and stage and 
frantically waved, whfle hats, umbrellas, handkerchiefs, 
and other personal belongings were tossed to and fro 
like bubbles over the great dancing sea of human heads. 
For a quarter of an hour the tumult lasted, and it only 
ceased when people had exhausted themselves.” 


THE NOM/XA 'T/OjV. 


207 


As Judge West stepped to the front of the platform, 
says the same record, the sensation was intense, and tlie 
interest in Mr. West on account of his commanding 
presence, and sympathy for his infirmity — he is blind —• 
brought all to silence throughout the vast hall. Judge 
West said : 

“As a delegate in tlie Chicago Convention of i860, the 
proudest service of my life was performed by voting for 
the nomination of that inspired emancipator, the first 
Republican President of the United States. [Applause.] 
Four and twenty years of the grandest history of record¬ 
ed times has distinguished the ascendency of the Repub¬ 
lican party. The skies have lowered and reverses have 
threatened, but our fiag is still there, waving above the 
mansion of the Presidency, not a stain on its folds, not 
a cloud on its glory. Whether it shall maintain that 
grand ascendency depends upon the action of this coun¬ 
cil. . With bated breath a nation awaits the result. On 
it are fixed the eyes of twenty millions of Republican 
freemen in the North. On it, or to it, rather, are 
stretched forth the imploring hands of ten millions of 
political bondmen of the South [applause], while above, 
from the portals of light, is looking down the immortal 
spirit of the immortal martyr who first bore it to victory, 
bidding to us Mail and God-speed. [Applause.] Six 
times in six campaigns has that banner triumphed— 
tliat symbol of union, freedom, humanity, and progress 
— some time borne by that silent man of destiny, the 
Wellington of American arms [wild applause], last by 


2o8 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


him at whose untimely taking off a nation swelled the 
funeral cries and w^ept above great Garfield’s grave. 
[Cheers and applause.] Shall that banner triumph 
again ? 

‘‘ Commit it to the bearing of that chief [a voice, ‘James 
G. Blaine, of Maine ’—cheers]—commit it to the bear¬ 
ing of that chief, the inspiration of whose illustrious char¬ 
acter and great name will fire the hearts of our young 
men, stir the blood of our manhood, and rekindle the fer¬ 
vor of the veterans, and the closing of the seventh cam¬ 
paign will see that holy ensign spanning the sky like a 
bow.of promise. [Cheers.] Political conditions are 
changed since the accession of the Republican party to 
power. The mighty issues of freedom and bleeding hu¬ 
manity which convulsed the continent and aroused the 
Republic, rallied, united, and inspired the forces of pa¬ 
triotism and the forces of humanity in one consolidated 
phalanx, have ceased their contentions. The subordinate 
issues resulting therefrom are settled and buried away 
with the dead issues of the past. The arms of the Solid 
South are against us. Not an electoral gain can be expect¬ 
ed from that section. If triumph come, the Republican 
States of the North must furnish the conquering bat¬ 
talions frdm the fann, the anvil, and the loom, from the 
mines, the workshop, and the desk, from the hut of the 
trapper on the snowy Sierras, from the hut of the fisher¬ 
man on the banks of the Fludson. The Republican 
States must furnish these conquering battalions if tri¬ 
umph come. 


THE NOMINATION-. 


209 


“ Does not sound political wisdom dictate and demand 
that a leader shall be given to them whom our peo¬ 
ple will follow, not as conscripts advancing by funereal 
marches to certain defeat, but a grand civic hero, whom 
the souls of the people desire, and whom they will fol¬ 
low with all the enthusiasm of volunteers, as they sweep 
on and onward to certain victory. [Cheers.] A repre¬ 
sentative of American manhood [ppplause], a represent¬ 
ative of that living Republicanism that demands the 
amplest industrial projection and opportunity whereby 
labor shall be enabled to earn and eat the bread of in¬ 
dependent employment, relieved of mendicant cotnpe- 
tition with pauper Europe or pagan China ? [Loud 
applause.] In this contention of forces, to whose can¬ 
didate shall be entrusted our battle-flag ? Citizens, I 
am not here to do it, and may my tongue cleave to the 
roof of my mouth if I do abate one tittle from the just 
fame, integrity, and public honor of Chester A. Arthur, 
our President. [Applause.] I abate not one tittle from 
the just fame and public integrity of George F. Ed¬ 
munds [applause], of Joseph R. flawley [applause], of 
John Sherman [applause], of that grand old black 
eagle of Illinois. [Here the speaker was interrupted 
several moments by prolonged applause.] And I am 
proud to know that these distinguished Senators whom 
I have named have borne like testimony to the public 
life, the public character, and the public integrity of 
him whose confirmation brought him to the highest 
—second in dignity to the ofiice of the President 

14 


210 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


only himself—the first premiership in the administra¬ 
tion of James A. Garfield. [Applause.] A man for 
whom the Senators and rivals will vote, the Secretary 
of State of the United States is good enough for a plain 
flesh and blood God’s people to vote for for President. 
[Loud applause.] 

“ Who shall be our candidate ? Not the representa¬ 
tive of a particular interest of a particular class. Send 
the great proclamation to the country labelled ‘ The 
Doctor’s Candidate,’ ‘The Law’yer’s Candidate,’ ‘The 
Wall Street Candidate,’ and the hand of resurrection 
would not fathom his November graAm. [Applause.] 

“ Gentlemen, he must be a representative of that Re¬ 
publicanism that demands the absolute political, as 
well as personal, emancipation and enfranchisement of 
mankind—a representative of that Republicanism which 
recognizes the stamp of American citizenship as the 
passport to e^mry right, privilege, and consideration at 
home or abroad, whether under the sky of Bismarck, 
under the Palmetto, under the Pelican, or on the banks 
of the Mohawk—that Republicanism that regards with 
dissatisfaction a despotism which, under the ‘ sic semper 
tyrannis ’ of the Old Dominion, emulates, by slaughter, 
popular majorities in the name of Democracy—a Re¬ 
publicanism as embodied and stated in the platform of 
principles this day adopted by your convention. 

“Gentlemen, such a representative Republican is 
James G. Blaine, of Maine. [Applause, continuing 
twenty minutes.] If nominated to-night his campaign 


THE HOMIHATIOH. 


211 


would commence to-morrow and continue until victory 
is assured. [Cheers.] There would be no powder burned 
to fire into the backs of his leaders. It woidd only be 
exploded to illuminate the inauguration. The brazen 
throats of the cannon in yonder square, waiting to 
i herald the result of the convention, would not have 
time to cool before his name would be caught up on 
ten thousand tongues of electric flame. It would sweep 
down from the old Pine Tree State. It would go over 
the hills and valleys of New England. 

“ Three millions of Republicans believe that that man 
who, from the baptism of blood on the plains of Kansas 
to the fall of the immortal Garfield, in all that struggle 
of humanity and progress, wherever humanity desired 
succor, wherever love for freedom called for protection, 
wherever the country called for a defender, wherever 
blows fell thickest and fastest, there in the forefront of 
the battle were seen to wave the white plumes of James 
G. Blaine, our Henry of Navarre. Nominate him, and 
the shouts of a September victory in Maine will be re¬ 
echoed back by the thunders of the October victory in 
Ohio. Nominate him, and the camp-fires and beacon 
lio-hts will illuminate the continent from the Golden 
Gate to Cleopatra’s needle. Nominate him, and the 
millions who are now in waiting will rally to swell the 
column of victory that is sweeping on. 

“ If you do so, he will give you a glorious victory in 
November next, and when he shall have taken his posi¬ 
tion as President of the great Republic, you may be 



212 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 



sure you will licive a,n administration in the interest of 
commerce, in the interest of labor, in the inteiest of 
finance, in the interest of peace at home and peace 
abroad, and in the interest of the prosperity of this 
great people.” [Long applause.] 

The nomination was seconded by ex-Governor C. K. 
Davis, Colonel W. C. Goodloe, of Kentucky, ex-Sena- 
tor Platt, and ex-Speaker Grow, of Pennsylvania. Their 
speeches, which were generally Extremely happy, were 
received with vociferous applause. 

The organization was controlled by the opponents of 
Mr. Blaine, but from the time the nominations were 
made the Blaine men carried everything before them. 
The campaign for him in the convention was well 
planned and brilliantly executed. An instance of the 
sagacity with which the forces for ‘the ex-Senator were 
managed may be touched upon. Mr. Blaine’s support¬ 
ers, aware that the Arthur, Edmunds, and Sherman men 
had agreed to compel an adjournment on the night of 
June 5th, after taking a single ballot, thus forcing an ex¬ 
hibition of strength and giving a night for opposing 
combinations, assisted in carrying out this intention. 
The adjournment which they secured was, however, 
taken before, instead of after a ballot, and when the 
convention met afresh the next morning it was more 
difficult to gain an adjournment in the anti-Blaine in¬ 
terest. The delegates were not exhausted as on the 
previous night. They had begun the actual work of 
the convention and had the day before them. It was 




THE NOMINATIOI^. 


213 


attempted after the first and after the third ballot with¬ 
out success. On the night before it would, doubtless, 
have had an easy success if it had not been for the 
coup of the Blaine men. 

On the morning of June 6th the doors of the Exposi¬ 
tion Hall were thrown open at 10 o’clock, and, as at each 
session of the convention a struggling crowd waited for 
admission. When it was at length seated, and the dele¬ 
gates had found their places. Chairman Henderson,. 
looking down over the portrait of Garfield, set in a 
panel of his desk, called the convention to order. 
“The galleries,” says an account, “groaned with the 
weight of human beings. The delegates looked weary 
and exhausted. The feverish fire in the eyes of the 
Arthur, Blaine, and Edmunds leaders told the story of a 
night of anxiety.” Prayer was offered by Rev. Dr. 
Henry M. Scudder, and then the chairman ordered the 
clerk to call the roll on the first ballot for a Presiden¬ 
tial candidate. 

“Alabama,” shouted the clerk. The State gave 17 
votes for Arthur, i for Blaine, and i for Logan, the 
chairman of the delegation announcing the illness of 
one of the delegates. Arkansas followed, giving Arthur 
4, Blaine 8, and Edmunds 2. California, the next on 
tlic list, cast her vote solidly for Blaine, and was re¬ 
warded by vociferous cheers from Mr. Blaine’s friends, 
ejeorgia gave her entire vote to Arthur, and Illinois 
<rave most of liers to I.ogan. When Indiana gave 
Blaine 18, and Iowa gave him 26, there were loud 


214 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


cheers. Maine followed with a full response for. Blaine. 
All eyes observed George William Curtis as he arose 
from his seat among the New York delegates and an¬ 
nounced the vote of the State : Arthur, 31, Blaine, 28, 
Edmunds, 12. Ohio gave Sherman 25, and Blaine 21, 
and Pennsylvania added 47 to the Blaine column, with 
II for Arthur, i for Edmunds, and i for Logan. West 
Virginia was unanimously for Blaine. The ballot 
stood, Blaine 334^, Arthur 278, Edmunds 93, Logan 
63I, John Sherman 30, Hawley 13, Lincoln 4, William 
T. Sherman 2. The result was greeted by the Blaine 
men with enthusiasm. 

The ballot showed that the Arthur and Edmunds 
men could not control the convention without aid from 
the minor candidates, and delegates in their interest 
went about endeavoring to secure an adjournment. 
They were unsuccessful, and the second ballot was 
begun. The first ballot should be in the possession of 

the leader in detail for a full understanding of what 
followed. 

When Alabama was called again she showed a gain 
of one for Blaine. Arkansas made its 8 votes for 
him II, and with this good beginning the ballot went 
on until at the end 349 votes were recorded for Blaine. 
It was the last vote announced and “as it dropped 
fiom the clerk’s lips,” says a newspaper report, “the 
cheers that arose were deafening. As they cheered 
the Blaine men got up all over the floor, yelled and 
cheered and whistled in the galleries, and waved their 


THE NOMINATION. 


215 


THE FIRST BALLOT. 


States. 

Blaine. 

Arthur. 

% 

Edmunds. 

I.ogan. 

• 

J. Sherman 

Hawley. 

Lincoln. 

W. T. Sherman. 

Number of 

I )elegates. 

* 

Alabama. 

1 

17 


I 





20 

Arkansas. 

8 

4 

2 






14 

California. 

j 6 


. . 


. . 



, . 

16 

Colorado. 

6 



.. 


•• 


, , 

6 

Connecticut. 


,. 


, , 


12 


, . 

12 

Delaware. 

5 

1 






, . 

6 

Florida. 


7 

, , 


, , 




8 

Georgia. .. 

. . 

24 


. . 

. . 

. • 

. . 

. . 

24 

Illinois. 

?, 

1 

, . 

40 

• . 

. , 


. . 

44 

Indiana. 

i8 

9 

I 


2 



• • 

30 

Iowa. 

26 



• • 

, , 


, , 

, , 

26 

Kansas. 

12 

4 


I 


X 


, , 

18 

Kentucky. 

5.’^ 

16 

. • 

2X 

I 

, . 

1 


26 

I>ouisiana. 

2 

10 

. • 

3 

, , 

. . 

• • 

. . 

16 

Maine. 

12 

,. 


• , 

. , 

. , 

. . 


12 

Maryland. 

10 

6 

•• 

. . 

• . 

. . 

. . 

. • 

16 

Massachusetts .... 

I 

2 

25 

. . 





28 

Michigan. ... 


2 

7 

. . 

. . 


. . 

2 

26 

Minnesota. 

■ 7 

1 

6 


. . 

.. 

.. 

. . 

14 

Mississippi. 

1 

17 

. . 

. - 


. . 



18 

Missouri . 

.S 

10 

6 

10 

1 



. . 

32 

Nebraska. 

8 

2 


• • 

. . 

. . 

. . 

. . 

10 

Nevada.. 

6 

, , 

. . 

.. 


. 

•• 


6 

New Hampshire. 

. . 

4 

4 


. . 

. . 



8 

New Jersey. 

Q 

. . 

6 

. . 

1 

• 

2 


18 

New York. 

2 ) 

31 

12 




I 

• • 

72 

North Carolina. 

2 

19 


1 

• . 

. . 


. . 

22 

Ohio. 

21 

. . 

. • 

• • 

25 

. . 

. . 


46 

Oregon. 

6 




•• 


•• 


6 

Peqnsylvania. 

47 

II 

1 

I 


• • 


• • 

60 

8 

Rhode Island. .. . ... 

.. 


8 






South Carolina. 

I 

17 

. . 

. . 


1 

•• 


18 

Tennessee . 

7 

16 

. . 

I 



•• 


24 

Te.x.is. 


1 1 

8 

2 

. . 




26 

8 

Vermont. 

1 





• 

• • 

V^irginia. 

2 

2 I 


1 





24 

West Virginia. 

12 





• • 



12 

Wisconsin .. 

IQ 

6 

6 




1 


22 

Thkkitokiks. 
Arizona. . 

' 't 


■ .. 

, , 

, . 



1 

! 

2 

Dakota. . 

, 2 

i 

. • 


1 


1 * * 


2 

Idaho. 

. . 

2 


; 



1 


2 

Montana. 

1 

. 

1 

; 

1 


1 

1 

' 

2 

New Mexico. 


2 

. 

i 


1 

( 

■ • 

2 

U tah . 


2 

. 

1 

I • • 


1 .. 


2 

Washington. 

2 


• • 

1 • • 

1 ” ’ 

1 •• 

1 •• 

1 

• * 

2 

Wyoming. 




1 

1 


i ’ 



District of Columbia... 

1 

I 


1 ■ ■ 

• 

• 




Totals. 

334 ><i 

278 

93 

1 

1 30 

1 

i ^ 

2 

820 


Total, 818. Necessary to a choice, 411. One vote from Alabama and one from 
Louisiana missing. 


























































































2i6 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


hats, handkerchiefs, and umbrellas. It took the crowd 

fully ten minutes to get over their rejoicing. The 
chairman looked through his glasses at the throng 

before him, but did not strike a blow with his gavel.” 

. At length the crowd became silent enough to hear 
General Henderson’s ‘‘ Call the roll,” and the third 
ballot was begun as the rejoicing echoes died away. 
Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, 
Delaware, Florida, Georgia, and Illinois repeated their 
vote on the second ballot. The Arthur men shouted 
when a vote before given to Edmunds ranged itself in 
their column, and did not shout when Arthur’s vote in 
Kansas went to Blaine entire. In Kentucky another 
Arthur man deserted to Blaine, and until Michigan 
was reached there was no further change. Then when 
two Edmunds men from that State came over to Blaine 
the Blaine men applauded as if they had never ap¬ 
plauded before. Arthur gained a Minnesota vote and 
some rejoicing followed ; then he gained another in 
Missouri, but Blaine gained four and followed with the 
solid vote of Nebraska. New Jersey, which had hitherto 
cast no vote for Arthur, gave him one and at the same 
time made Blaine’s 9 votes 17. North Carolina gave 
Blaine another vote, Ohio two, and Pennsylvania three. 
The excitement among the Blaine delegation increased 
and every gain was greeted with tumultuous cheers. 
South Carolina and Texas each gave Blaine one ; so 
did Virginia. The convention eagerly awaited the an¬ 
nouncement of the ballot. The clerks made up the result 


THE NOMIN-ATION. 


217 


in the midst of an anxious buzz. Blaine had gained 26 
votes and Arthur had lost 2. I'he votes which failed 
from Logan and Edmunds came to Blaine. It looked as 
if Mr. Blaine were on the road to success. The delegates 
had commonly kept a “tally” of their own during this 
ballot, but no one was certain of the result, and when the 
clerk read : Blaine 375, Arthur 274, IMmunds 69, Logan 
53, John Sherman 25, Hawley 13,'Lincoln 8, W. T. 
Sherman 2, a cheer went up that seemed to shake the 
building. 

The opponents of Blaine saw that if he was to be 
defeated the remedy must be stringent, and Judge 
Foraker, of Ohio, in command of the Sherman forces, 
jumping to his feet, moved a recess until half-past seven 
o’clock. There were loud shouts of “ No ! no!” The 
uproar became deafening. Mr. Stewart, of Pennsylvania, 
shouted for a fourth ballot. Theodore Roosevelt, of New 
York, was held upon the back of a chair while he cried 
for recognition, and Judge Foraker meanwhile kept 
the floor, demanding that his motion be put. Chairman 
Henderson finally submitted it and declared it lost, but 
the ayes and noes were immediately demanded. The 
clerk notwithstanding repeatedly called Alabama, as a 
beginning of the fourth ballot, but Alabama, though not 
silent, did not answer. The entire convention was in an 
uproar, and twenty members were by this time on their 
feet calling aloud for the ayes and noes. The chairman 
at lengtli acceded to tlicir vociferous request, and the 
clerk called the roll for the vote on the motion to ad- 



2I8 


JAMES G. BLA/ME. 


journ. It resulted : yeas 364, nays 450. No doubt 
could remain after this of the nomination of Mr. Blaine, 
and again the delegates in his interest set the air vi- 
hratino- with their shouts. In the midst of the tumult 

O 

Judge Foraker moved that the rules -be suspended in 
order that the nomination of James G. Blaine might be 
made by acclamation, but the opposition to this was 
too strong, and he withdrew his motion. 

The fourth ballot proceeded in wild confusion. Six 
of the Alabama delegates went to Blaine immediately. 
Florida helped him. When Illinois was reached it was 
apparent that very few more votes would be needed to 
nominate Blaine, and Senator Cullom transferred 34 
Logan votes to him in the midst of tremendous excite¬ 
ment. Louisiana gave him 9 votes. When Ohio was 
called Judge Foraker made a brief speech, in which he 
stated that he had supported John Sherman from the 
first, but that Ohio now cast 46 votes for James G. 
Blaine. This placed his nomination beyond doubt. 
His friends could scarcely wait for the completion of 
the ballot and announcement of the foregone conclu¬ 
sion to burst in cheers, before which all that had gone 
before was mild and decorous. The band played and 
they drowned its music. In a moment the sound of 
the rejoicing boom of cannon came through the open 
windows. Flags and handkerchiefs were waved ; men 
stood upon their seats and shouted themselves hoarse. 
Ten thousand voices joined in a triumphant huzza. 
In.two earnest contests Mr. Blaine’s friends had suffered 


THE NOMINATION-. 


219 


defeat and borne it patiently. This rich and over¬ 
whelming victory was a great joy and a full reward. 
Following is a summary of the ballots : 


Candidates. 

ist ballot. 

2d ballot. 

3d ballot. 

4lh ballot. 

James G. Blaine. 

334 i 

349 

375 

541 

Chester A. Arthur. 

278 

276 

274 

207 

George B. Edmunds. 

93 

85 

69 

41 

John A. Logan. 

6-a 

61 

53 

7 

John Sherman. 

30 

28 

25 


Joseph R. Hawley. 

13 

13 

>^3 

15 

Robert E. Lincoln. 

4 

4 

8 

2 

William T. Sherman. 

2 

2 

2 

- . • 

Total vote. 

818 

818 

819 

813 

Necessary to a choice. .. 

410 

410 

410 

407 


The glad shouts had not subsided when Congress¬ 
man Burleigh, in behalf of the President’s supporters, 
moved to make the nomination unamiiuous. Senators 
Sabin and Plumb heartily seconded the motion, and 
the Chair put it : 

“ Those who are in favor of making the nomination 
of James G. Blaine unanimous will say ‘aye.’” 

“Aye ! ” cried the delegates and galleries in concert. 

“Those who are opposed will say ‘ no.’ ” 

The hall was silent. 




























XX. 


RECEPTION OF THE NOMINATION. 

It was graceful and appropriate that the first person 
to congratulate Mr. Blaine on his success should be his 
rival, President Arthur, who sent to him in Augusta the 
following telegram, read in the convention : 

To the Hon. James G. Blaine, Augusta, Ale. : 

As the candidate of the Republican party, you will have my earnest 
and corcj^al support. 

Chester A. Arthur. 

The President’s supporters, not only in the conven¬ 
tion, but wherever found, had no sullen grudge to satisfy 
because of the failure of their candidate. Including the 
members of his Cabinet, they accepted it with expres¬ 
sions of disappointment indeed, but with the best good¬ 
will. 

The news of the nomination aroused unusual enthu¬ 
siasm throughout the country. Early in the evening 
fires were alight, bands parading, and guns firing in 
every Republican district. The name was received with 
especial satisfaction throughout the West, and California 




RECRPTION OF THE NOMINATION. 


221 


rent itself to do honor to the nomination. Ne\v York’s 
voice was not uncertain, and on the morning following 
the adjournment of the convention the general pleas¬ 
ure at the convention’s choice was recorded in press 
telegrams from the remotest villages describing the 
form which their rejoicings had taken. In New York, 
Boston, Washington, and all the larger cities crowds 
hung about the bulletins, and the intelligence of the 
nomination was received with the most genuine and 
spontaneous liking. 

It was at Mr. Blaine’s home, however, where he is 
known not only as a great public figure, but as a man, 
that the greatest joy was shown. “ The newspaper and 
telegraph offices,” says the Augusta Herald., “were be¬ 
sieged by a surging mass of humanity. But it was not 
until Mr. Blaine’s nomination was displayed that the 
excitement reached its highest pitch ; then everybody 
seemed almost beside himself. Men embraced each 
other and jumped about for joy. The strongest lungs 
were strained.” 

A correspondent writing from the scene says : 

“ When the news of the nomination reached Augusta 
a perfect wave of enthusiasm rolled over the city. The 
streets were thronged with excited men, who, almost 
frenzied with delight, shouted until they were hoarse. 
They threw up their liats, wrestled with each other, and 
cut up all manner of capers. A Hag was run up on 
Water street, inscribed ‘ Our Next President, James G. 
Blaine.’ The banner was received witii loud shouts and 




222 


JAMES G. EE A/ME. 


cheers. Bells were rung and cannon fired. Ten min¬ 
utes after the nomination a large body of school chil¬ 
dren came down Oak Street, and added their voices to 
the din. The shouts and hurrahs could be heard all 
over the city until far into the night. 

“ Intense interest was manifested by the people all day 
in the proceedings of the convention. Early in the 
day all business was practically suspended, and Mr. 
Blaine’s chances became the chief topic of conversation. 
The first despatch of the day, from Postmaster Manly, 
announcing that no combinations had been formed dur¬ 
ing the night opposed to Mr. Blaine, created a buoyant 
feeling. Each bulletin thereafter attracted an increased 
crowd of readers, and the result of the first ballot was 
eagerly awaited, the crowd blocking the street in front 
of the bulletin board and overrunning the telegraph 
office. The announcement that Mr. Blaine was 54 votes 
ahead of any of his competitors at the close of the first 
ballot created considerable speculation, but little en¬ 
thusiasm. The crowd waited with intense interest to 
see what changes would occur in the succeeding ballot. 
The gain for Blaine and the weakening of Arthur and 
Edmunds were received with demonstrations of satisfac¬ 
tion. When the announcement came that there was a 
still larger gain for Blaine on the third ballot, it was 
with difficulty that the pent-up excitement could be re¬ 
strained, and preparations were begun to celebrate 
Blaine’s nomination. Ropes were thrown across the 
streets, and flags inscribed ‘Our next President, J. G. 


RECEPTION OF THE NOMINATION. 


223 


Blaine,’ were made ready to fling to the breeze as soon 
as the telegraph should click what appeared to be the 
inevitable result of the balloting. At 4.32 a cheer from 
the telegraph office announced a victory, and then be¬ 
gan an old-fashioned Fourth of July celebration. Old 
and young. Republicans and Democrats, all joined in 
the demonstration.” 

Mr. Blaine arrived in Augusta from Washington on 
Tuesday of the week of the nomination, and spent 
the stormy days of the convention quietly in his library, 
at work upon the second volume of “Twenty Years in 
Congress.” His bearing during this time was not less 
modest and uneager than on the occasion of the two 
former conventions. A journal already quoted, speak¬ 
ing of his simple carriage, adds : 

“He has seemingly been as unconcerned at what was 
going on in Chicago as he would be had he not been a 
candidate for Presidential honor. His mind was so es¬ 
tranged or diverted from politics and political conven¬ 
tions, that a pair of horses which had been offered him 
for sale seemed to give him a more congenial and inter¬ 
esting topic of conversation. Perhaps, also, as a con¬ 
tradiction to certain reports telegraphed from Augusta, 
it is proper to say that there has been no private wire 
running into his house, nor has he been in telegraphic 
communication with his friends, as has been reported ; 
nor has he given any interviews to newspapers, as has 
been alleged. During the visits made him, mostly by 
his immediate neighbors, he has studiously refrained 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


224 

from any expression of opinion concerning liis candi¬ 
dacy, nor has he commented on the proceedings of the 
convention. He has obtained his information of the do¬ 
ings of the convention from the daily newspapers." 

As the bulletins were handed him he sat upon his 
lawn in the midst of his family and read them in the 
methodical mannerusual with him. From time to time 
he rose from his seat and paced the lawn, exhibiting 
less anxiety than he has often shown when receiving 

the election returns from his own State and reckoning 

* 

the result. When the news of the nomination was re¬ 
ceived “ he maintained the same composure. There 
was only a slight dilatation of his big, lustrous eyes, 
which showed how deeply he felt and appreciated the 
great honor conferred upon him. A few minutes later 
he betrayed a slight emotion as he casually remarked 
that he owed much to the devoted men who had stood 
by him for so many years. 

“ In speaking of the result, he said that he felt all the 
more gratified, because it was an honor that had come 
to him unsolicited. He had not lifted a fineer to se- 
cure the nomination, nor had he made any endeavor in 
any direction to get it. He had received over seven 
thousand letters asking him to be a candidate, and had 
not answered one of them. Now and then the conver¬ 
sation turned to other topics, as i’f nothing had hap¬ 
pened." 

His friends began presently to call upon him in large 
numbers, and congratulatory telegrams from distin- 


RECEPTION OF THE NOMINATION 


225 


guished Republicans in every State were delivered to 
him. In the evening a large part of the people of the 
town gathered about his dwelling. Their number was 
shortly increased by the arrival of the train from the 
West, bringing many from Portland and the villages 
along the railway line. In response to the cheers of 
this friendly company Mr. Blaine appeared at the door 
of his house and said : 

“ My Friends and my Neighbors —I thank you most 
sincerely for the honor of this call. There is no spot 
in the world where good news comes to me so grate¬ 
fully as here at my own home ; among the people with 
whom I have been on terms of friendship and intimacy 
for more than thirty years, people whom I know and 
who know me. Thanking you again for the heartiness 
of the compliment, I bid you good night.” 

Among the messages of congratulation received by 
the freshly made nominee, none could have been more 
grateful than this from the wife of one who, in life, was 
his staunchest friend : 

“Cleveland, O., June 7. 

“ To Hon. James G. Blaine: 

“Our household joins in one great thanksgiving. 
From the quiet of our home we send our most earnest 
wish that through the turbulent months to follow, and 
in the day of victory, you may be guarded and kept. 

“ Lucretia R. Garfield.” 

The smoke of the battle had not cleared away before 
began to specidate as to how it happened. 

15 


men 


7.26 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


It happened very simply, for Mr. Blaine was the 
choice of the majority of the convention. But it is 
worth while to reproduce this suggestive analysis : 

I. Mr. Arthur’s friends on the fourth ballot gave to Mr. 
Blaine 71 votes, and these, with the column of 349 of 
the latter, constituted 420, or 9 more than a majority. 
It is therefore true that Mr. Arthur’s friends may claim 
that they alone gave to the successful candidate more 
allies than were sufficient to nominate him. 

II. While Mr. Edmunds had 93 votes on the first ballot, 
he held only 41 on the fourth roll call. This difference 
of 52 would have been sufficient to carry Mr. Blaine’s 
column up to 401, and to insure the other 10 from other 
sources, to make up the majority. It is true, then, that 
Mr. Edmunds’ friends alone contributed to the success¬ 
ful candidates a contingent adequate to determine the 
nomination. 

III. Logan started with 63-! votes, and ended with 7. 
His friends led 56^ votes to Blaine. This accession 
alone raised the leading column to 405J ; the comple¬ 
ment for a majority could not fail to follow. 

IV. The strength of the two Shermans and of Lincoln 
aggregated 36 on the first, ballot and two on the last. 
From these quarters 34 votes went to make up the ma¬ 
jority. They alone would not have controlled the event, 
and yet they go to prove that every element in the con¬ 
vention joined to make the nomination. 

All rivals joined to decorate the successful candidate 
with a majority unparalleled in political history. Such 


RECEPTION' OE THE NOMINATION 


227 


unanimity and such harmony, such concentration of sen¬ 
timent, in the convention, are only signs of the hearti¬ 
ness of Republican preference for the foremost Ameri¬ 
can, for the most popular of our statesmen, for the com¬ 
moner most beloved by the people. 

Ratification meetings were held in certain places 
within a few hours of the nomination, and the days im¬ 
mediately following were filled with these expressions 
of a genuine satisfaction. 


The choice of the convention was not pleasing to all 
Republicans. The system of nomination is such that 
some bitter feeling must always remain with the de¬ 
feated ; and this year the preliminary canvass had been 
especially acrimonious, and some things had been un¬ 
wisely said in advance of the nomination which could 
not be retracted with consistency. On the whole, how¬ 
ever, the nomination was accepted in the spirit becom¬ 
ing those who have fought an honest fight and have 
been honestly defeated. There could be no pretence 
that Mr. Blaine had not been fairly chosen, or that 
he was not the choice of an overwhelming majority 
of the delegates. That he was also the nominee 
whom the greater part of the Republicans everywhere 
desired was immediately owned by his opponents. 
Nevertheless there was a note of dissent. While the bon¬ 
fires were sending up their merry flames and the can¬ 
non sounded joyfully in every village of importance 
in the North, there was a small body of men whose in¬ 
clinations were not toward bonfires or cannon. They 



328 JAMES G. BLAINE. 

received the intelligence of Mr. Blaine’s nomination in 
sullen disappointment, and used the earliest opportu¬ 
nity to make their sour prophecies and warnings. It 
was in the main, perhaps, an honest body—though its 
sentiment was largely inspired by free-trade grumblings 
—but it was not so large nor did it represent a senti¬ 
ment so well worth the heed of intelligent voters as the. 
companies of revolt which have resulted from other 
presidential nominations. The choice of Lincoln and 
Grant and Garfield roused much deeper opposition in 
the first weeks succeeding their nomination ; and yet, 
dear to the popular heart, grounded securely in the 
liking of the masses, they went irresistibly on to splen¬ 
did victories. The judgment of the convention which 
named Mr. Blaine was of like firm foundation. It was 
an answer to the unforced, earnest demand of the people, 
and it is to the people that his friends look for the stout 
confirmation of their choice offered to Lincoln, Grant, 
and Garfield, and for the confuting of those who doubt 
the wisdom of their mighty voice. 

The committee to inform Mr. Blaine of his nomina¬ 
tion was composed as follows : 

John B. Henderson, of Missouri, chairman. 

George Turner, of Alabama. 

Logan H. Roots, of Arkansas. 

Charles F. Crocker, of California. 

S. H. Elbert, of Colorado. 

Samuel Fessenden, of Connecticut. 

Washington Hastings, of Delaware. 

W. G. Stewart, of Florida. 

C. D. Forsyth, of Geoj-gia. 


RECEPTION OF THE NOMINATION, 


229 


George R. Davis, of Illinois. 

John K. Baker, of Indiana. 

N. W. Hubbard, of Iowa. 

Henry E. Insley, of Kansas. 

\V. C. Goodloe, of Kentucky. 

W. B. Merchant, of Louisiana. 

JosiAH H. Drummond, of Maine. 

J. McPherson, of Maryland. 

Jesse M. Gove, of Massachusetts. 

Julius C. Burrows, of Michigan. 

Cushman K. Davis, of Minnesota. 

John R. Lynch, of Mississippi. 

Chauncey I. Filley, of Missouri. 

Church Howe, of Nebraska. 

M. D. Foley, of Nevada. 

E. H. Rollins, of New Hampshire. 

William Walter Phelps, of New Jersey. 
Andrew D. White, of New York. 

Patrick H. Winston, Jr., of North Carolina. 
John B. Foraker, of Ohio. 

O. N. Denny, of Oregon. 

Galusiia a. Grow, of Pennsylvania. 

Daniel G. Littlefield, of Rhode Island. 
Samuel W. Lee, of South Carolina. 

J. C. Napier, of Tennessee. 

N. W. CuNEY, of Texas. 

Frederick Billings, of Vermont.- 
Samuel M. Yost, of Virginia. 

Arnold C. Sherr, of West Virginia. 

E. W. Keys, of Wisconsin. 

S. H. Stebbins, of Arizona. 

J. L. Jolly, of Dakota. 

Perry H. Carson, of the District of Columbia. 
William Shelling, of Idaho. 

•Lee Mantle, of Montana. 

W. H. H. Llewellyn, of New Mexico. 
Nathan Kimball, of Utah. 

George D. Hill, of Washington. 

W. J. Meldrum, of Wyoming. 

Charles M. Chisbee, of Michigan, secretary. 


230 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


This committee arrived in Augusta on June 20th, and 
the next morning proceeded in a body to Mr. Blaine’s 
house, where they were received by Mrs. Blaine. When 
all was in readiness, Mr. Blaine was escorted to the 
lawn, where he stood while General Henderson stepped 
forward and read the address of the committee, which 
was as follows : 

“Mr. Blaine —Your nomination for the office of the- 
President of the United States by the National Repub¬ 
lican Convention, recently assembled at Chicago, is 
already• known to you. The gentlemen before you, 
constituting the committee composed of one member 
fiom each State and Territory of the country, and one 
from the District of Columbia, now come as the ac¬ 
credited organ of that convention to give vou formal 
notice of your nomination and to request your accept¬ 
ance thereof. It is of course known to you that, besides 
your own, several othernames, among the most honored 
in the councils of the Republican party, were presented 
by th.eir friends as candidates for this nomination. Be¬ 
tween your friends and the friends of the other gentle¬ 
men so justly entitled to the respect and confidence of 
their political associates, the contest was one of gener¬ 
ous rivalry, free from any taint of bitterness, and equally 
free from the reproach of injustice. 

“At an early stage of the proceedings of th6 conven¬ 
tion it became manifest that the Republican States 
whose aid must be invoked at last to insure success to 
the ticket earnestly desired your nomination. It was 


RECEPTION' OE THE NOMINATION. 23 1 

equally manifest that the desire so earnestly expressed 
by delegates from those States was but a truthful reflec¬ 
tion of an irresistible popular demand. It was not 
tliought nor pretended that this demand had its origin 
in any ambitious desires of your own or in organized 
work of your friends, but it was recognized to be what 
it truthfully is—a spontaneous expression by the free 
people of love and admiration of a chosen leader. No 
nomination would have given satisfaction to every mem¬ 
ber of the party. This is not to be expected in a coun¬ 
try so extended in area and so varied in interests. The 
nomination of Mr. Lincoln in i860 disappointed so 
many hopes and overthrew so many cherished ambi¬ 
tions, that for a short time disaffection threatened to 
ripen into open revolt. In 1872 the discontent was so 
pronounced as to impel large masses of the party to an 
organized opposition to its nominees. For many weeks 
after the nomination of General Garfield, in 1880, defeat 
seemed almost inevitable. In each case the shock of dis¬ 
appointment was followed by “sober second thought.” 
Individual preferences gradually yielded to convictions 
of public duty. The prompting of patriotism finally 
rose superior to the irritations and animosities of the 
hour. The party in every trial has grown stronger in 
the face of threatened danger. 

“ In tendering you the nomination it gives us pleasure 
to remember that those great measures which furnished 
the cause for party congratulations by the late conven¬ 
tion at Chicago, and which are now crystallized into 


232 JAMES G. BLAINE. 

the legislation of the country—measures which have 
strengthened and dignified the Nation while they have 
elevated and advanced the people—have at all times and 
on all proper occasions received your earnest and A’^alu- 
able support. It was your good fortune to aid in protect¬ 
ing the Nation against the assaults of armed treason. 
You were present and helped to unloose the shackles of 
slavery, you assisted in placing anew guarantees of free¬ 
dom in the Federal Constitution. Your voice was po¬ 
tent in preserving national faith, when false theories of 
finance would have blasted national and individual pros¬ 
perity. We kindly remember you as the fast friend of 
honest money and commercial integrity. In all that 
pertains to the security and repose of capital, the dig¬ 
nity of labor, manhood, the elevation and freedom of 
the people, the right of the oppressed to demand, and 
the duty of the government to afford protection, your 
public acts have received the unqualified endorsement 
of popular approval. 

“But we are not unmindful of the fact that parties, 
like individuals, cannot live entirely on the past, how¬ 
ever splendid the record. The present is ever charged 
with its immediate cares, and the future presses on with 
its new duties, its perplexing responsibilities ; parties, 
like individuals, however, that are free from the stain of 
violated faith in the past are fairly entitled to the pre¬ 
sumption of sincerity in their promises for the future. 
Among the promises made by the party in its late con¬ 
vention at^ Chicago, are : economy and purity of ad- 


RECEPTION OF THE NOMINATION. 


233 


ministration ; protection of the citizen, native and 
naturalized, at liome and abroad ; the prompt restora¬ 
tion of the Navy; the wise reduction of surplus reve¬ 
nues, relieving the taxpayer without injuring the 
laborer ; the preservation of public lands for actual 
settlers, import duties when necessary at all to be 
levied, not for revenue only, but for the double purpose 
of revenue and protection ; the regulation of internal 
commerce ; the settlement of international differences 
by peaceful arbitration, but coupled with the reasser¬ 
tion and maintenance of the Monroe doctrine as inter¬ 
preted by the fathers of the Republic ; perseverance 
in the good work of the civil service^ reform, to the 
end that dangers to free institutions which lurk in the 
power of official patronage may be wisely and effectively 
avoided, honest currency based on coin of intrinsic value, 
adding strength to the public credit, and giving renewed 
vitality to every branch of American industry. 

“Mr. Blaine —During the last twenty-three years 
the Republican party has builded a new Republic—a 
Republic far more splendid than originally designed by 
our fathers. As its proportions are already grand they 
may yet be enlarged ; its foundations may yet be 
strengthened, and its columns may be adorned with a 
beauty more resplendent still. To you as its architcct- 
in-chief will soon be assigned this grateful work.” 

To which Mr. Blaine replied : 

“Mr. Chairman and Genilemen of the National 
C oM-MiTi EE :— I receive, not without deep sensibility. 



234 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


your official notice of the action of the National Con¬ 
vention already brought to my knowledge through the 
public press. I appreciate, more profoundly than I can 
express, the honor which is implied in the nomination 
for the Presidency by the Republican party of the na¬ 
tion, speaking through the authoritative voice of duly 
accredited delegates. ^ To be selected as a candidate by 
such an assemblage from the list of eminent statesmen 
whose names were presented fills me with embarras- 
ment. I can only express my gratitude for so signal an 
honor and my desire to prove worthy of the great trust 
imposed in me. In accepting the nomination as I now 

do, I am impressed—I am also oppressed—with a sense 

« 

of the labor and responsibility which attach to my posi¬ 
tion. The burden is lightened, however, by the host of 
earnest men who support my candidacy, many of whom 
add, as does your honorable committee, the cheer of per¬ 
sonal friendship to the pledge of political fealty. 

“A more formal acceptance will naturally be expected, 
and will in due season be communicated. It may, how¬ 
ever, not be inappropriate at this time to say that I have 
already made a careful study of the principles announced 
by the National Convention, and that, in whole and in 
detail, they have my heartiest sympathy and meet my 
unqualified approval. 

“ Apart from your official errand, gentlemen, I am ex¬ 
tremely happy to welcome you all to my house. With 
many of you I have already shared the duties of public 
service and have enjoyed most cordia] friendship. I 


RECEPTION' OE THE NOMINATION. 


235 


trust your journey from all parts of the great Republic 
has been agreeable, and that during your stay in Maine 
you will feel that you are not among strangers, but with 
friends. 

“ Invoking the blessings of God upon the great cause 
which we jointly represent, let us turn to the future 
without fear, and with manly heafts.” 


• XXL 


THE MAN. 

The history of the Republican candidate has been 
traced. We have followed Mr. Blaine through college 
to the teacher’s seat and the chair of an editor. Later 
he has been seen in the State Legislature, the House 
of Representatives, the Senate, and in charge of the 
first portfolio of the Cabinet. The story of the quiet 
years of study succeeding, and the nomination which 
has called him from the calm pleasures of literature, has 
been duly made known to the reader. There remains 
the mysterious and intangible quality of individuality, 
—something of which this little history, if at all faithful, 
must have given some hints in its progress, but which 
it will not do to leave to its casual revelations. The 
kind of impertinence which one feels in dealing at all 
with so intimate a part of a living man is one which 
must be forgiven to the biographer of the most com¬ 
pletely public figure that we know—a candidate for the 
Presidency. Since it must be part of our record, it can¬ 
not be better begun than by the reproduction of some 


THE MAH. 


'2-17 


honest words from one who may be presumed to know 
him nearly. Rev. Dr. James tl. Ecol, who for some 
years was pastor of the church attended by Mr. and 
Mrs. Blaine in Augusta, has said : 

“ The satisfaction I take in his nomination is based 
upon such knowledge of him as only a pastor can gain. 
I believe that I am too true a Republican, and I know 
that my conception of citizenship is too high, to permit 
me to ratify the exaltation of any man whose character 
has not the true ring. I have been very near to Mr. 
Blaine, not only in the most trying political crises, but 
in the sharper trial of great grief in the household, and 
have never yet detected a false not# I would not be 
understood as asserting too much for human nature. 
I mean that as I have known him he has stood loyally 
by his convictions ; that his word has always had back 
of it a clear purpose, and that purpose has always been 
worthy of the highest manhood. In his house he was 
always the soul of geniality and good heart. It was 
always summer in that house, whatever the Maine win¬ 
ter might be without. And not only his ‘ rich neighbors 
and kinsmen ’ welcomed him home, but a long line of 
the poor hailed the return of that family as a special 
providence. In the church he is honored and beloved. 
The good old New England custom of church-going 
with all the guests is enforced strictly in the Blaine 
household. Whoever is under his roof, from the Pres¬ 
ident down, is expected to be with the family at church. 
Fair weather or foul, those pews were always well filled. 


238 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


Not only his presence in church, but his infiuenv;e^ his 
wise counsels, his purse are freely devoted to the inter¬ 
est of the noble Old South Church of Augusta. The 
hold which Mr. Blaine has maintained upon the hearts 
of such great numbers of his countrymen is not suffici- 
en tly explained by brilliant gifts or magnetism ; the 
secret lies in his generous, manly, Christian character. 
Those who have known him best are not surprised that 
his friends all over the country have been determined 
that he should secure the highest honor within their 
gift. It is because they believe in him. The office has 
sought the man, the political papers to the contrary 
notwithstanding. have absolute knowledge that in 
1880 he did not lift a finger to influence the convention. 
He was quietly at home devoting himself to his business 
affairs, and steadfastly refused even the entreaties of 
his own family to interest himself in behalf of the 
nomination. I, for one, shall put my conscience into 
my vote next November.” 

That touch of genuineness—uncounterfeitable, unde¬ 
niable when present, which endeared Garfield to every¬ 
one who heard and even to those who merely read his 
words, runs through the character of his friend. Gar¬ 
field’s own severe loyalty to truth and right was a 
touchstone which drew its like and which sounded every 
one who approached him. To say that a man was his 
trusted friend seems to those who keep his memory the 
final word. 

There is nothing so well worth saying to the praise of 


THE MAH. 


239 


this sketch’s subject ; but it does not complete his por¬ 
trait. It ought to be added, for instance, to begin with 
the sturdy minor virtues, that industry has been one of 
the foremost qualities which have lifted Mr. I^laine to 
his position. In Congress, as has been said, he was 
from the first one of the most unsparingly laborious and 
faithful of committee-men. His mastery of details was 
rapid and accurate, and left him in firm possession of the 
larger points of the questions which came before him. 
Elsewhere in this volume are some words of his upon 
the value of the capacity for hard work to the dead 
President whom he eulogized, and it has been the cor¬ 
ner-stone of his own career. It is not a usual combina¬ 
tion, this of th^e patient laborer and the commanding 
genius which takes the eye of the world ; but Mr. Blaine 
did his unobserved plodding with the zeal and energy 
which carried all before him on the wider stage of the two 
Houses of Congress. His notable physical endowment 
is part of the secret of his power of concentration ; but 
it was first in the nature of the man. It was exhibited 
so early in his life as during his college days, when it 
enabled that solid and ample acquirement of knowledge 
which has strengthened and enlightened his public acts 
as well as his public discourses. 

Those who like to trace the beginnings of things go 
back I’o his college days also for the budding of the spirit 
of aggressiveness which is perhaps the characteristic 
most commonly attributed to the Republican candidate. 
Then, as has been recorded, he was the eager champion 


240 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


of the weak, ready at all times to do battle whether for 
his own rights or those of others. The quality was an 
outcome of a positive individuality. It-never at all par¬ 
took of the anxious pugnacity which finds its account 
in mere contest, and with his years it sobered into the 
vigorous temper of opposition to mistaken, narrow, and 
meretricious legislation, which gave him much of his 
power in the House. He was alert, decided, and ener¬ 
getic ; and if the disposition which breeds these is the 
aggressive one, then aggression is a singularly fortunate 
spirit for an American Congressman. He was constant 
in his attention upon the sessions of both Houses while 
he was a member of them, and no suspicious law was 
passed without his challenge. In his eulogy of Gar¬ 
field, Mr. Blaine says “ The three most distinguished par¬ 
liamentary leaders hitherto developed in this country 
are Mr. Clay, Mr. Douglas, and Mr. Thaddeus Stevens. 
Each was a man of consummate ability, of great earnest¬ 
ness, of intense personality, differing widely each from 
the others, and yet with a single trait in common, the 
power to command. In the give and take of daily dis¬ 
cussion, in the art of controlling and consolidating re¬ 
luctant and refractory followers, in the skill to overcome 
all forms of opposition, and to meet with competency 
and courage the varying phases of unlooked-for assault 
or unsuspected defection, it would be difficult to rank 
with these a fourth name in all our Congressional his¬ 
tory." Mr. Blaine’s name may perhaps fairly be set down 
as that fourth. His words are the apt description of 


THE MAH 


241 


his own power ; and they say that power so perfectly 
that it is needless to add anytliing’to them. 

Sucii aforce is interesting, but it is not on this side that 
he is to be most familiarly approached. It is as he is 
known to his acquaintance, his friends, and neighbors 
that he engages us; and few public men, after Garfield, 
bear this intimate kind of scrutiny better. Some one 
says that he is “a hearty, cordial, unaffected, agreeable 
man.” The phrase is inadequate only because the charm 
of manner is elusive of expression. “ fie is vivid and 
genial,” it is added, but the whole is not said. It is a 
thing which can be at all rendered only by its result; 
but if we say that no one converses with him who is 
not charmed and impressed, it is still very weakly told. 

‘‘Mr. Blaine with those who know him is the most 
popular of men. The charm of his manner is beyond 
expression, and nobody comes within the circle of his 
presence who is not overcome with his fascinations. 
With his great brilliancy he has that exquisite show of 
deference to his companions, a sort of appeal to them 
to verify or deny his words, that is very taking. He is 
also a very good listener, and he has an agreeable way 
of speaking one’s name and placing his hand on one's 
knee, that is an agreeable salve to one’s vanity. There 
is no acting: in the heartiness of his manner. He is an 
impulsive man, with a very warm heart, kindly instincts, 
and a generous nature. He is open, frank, and manly.” 

One has not, however, the more perfect form of an 

agreeable bearing, lacking a real substructure of gentle- 
16 


242 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


ness and good-will, sustained in their turn by the deeper 
qualities from which they spring. Mr. Blaine has not 
only these ; he is e(piipped in addition with that best 
grace in a public man, a sound memory. It is stored 
not alone with the facts and arguments which are his 
weapons, or the wide knowledge with which he points 
them. It is a happily personal memory, and never 
loses from it a face or voice. The anecdotes which 
illustrate this would make an abundant literature, and 
that of his recalling an old farmer whom he had met 
once four years before, and captivating him by using 
his name and bringing to his own lapsed memory a 
trivial incident of their first meeting is an instance of 
them. A journalist produces a more remarkable story. 

In 1863,” says he, “ I wrote for The New York Her¬ 
ald an account, some twelve columns long, of the battle 
of Chickamauga. About twenty lines of the entire ac¬ 
count were devoted to the narration of a trifling inci¬ 
dent. A white pigeon, or dove, confused by the smoke 
of the last desperate combat at the close of the battle, 
in which George H. Thomas repulsed Longstreet’s at¬ 
tack on his right, fluttered awhile over the heads of 
Thomas, Garfield, Wood, and others, grouped in a little 
hollow in the field for protection from the Rebel sharp¬ 
shooters, and then perched on the limb of a dead tree 
just above them. Here it sat until the firing ceased, 
and then flew northward unhurt. It was a pretty inci¬ 
dent, and, of course, I took all the license of a writer’ 
and made it as striking a passage of the narrative as I 


THE MAH. 


243 


could. In 1874, eleven years later, while in the Capital 
one day I was introduced to Mr. Blaine, who was at the 
time Speaker of the House. If I remember rightly, 1 
had never before seen him, and I supposed he had nevei- 
heard of me. Imagine my astonishment, then, when he 
said abruptly on hearing my name, ‘You’re the man 
I’ve been wanting to see for ten years.’ 

“ He took my arm and drew me half away to one side 
of the corridor. ‘ Did you write for The Herald an ac¬ 
count of Chickamauga in which a white dove figured 
rather poetically ? ’ he asked, and then went on to recall 
what I had written. ‘Now,’ he continued, ‘ tell me, was 
that a true incident or only done to make the story read¬ 
able.’ I assured him it was true, and mentioned that 
General Garfield, who was in the House, would proba¬ 
bly recall it, as he was present. Nothing more of inter¬ 
est passed between us ; but naturally I have since sworn 
by the man who could recall my unknown name and 
what I had written about a mere incident occurring ten 
years before. He was so earnest in his inquiry that I 
have never doubted that his curiosity in the matter, 
^mall as the incident was, was genuine.” 

If to his energy his indefatigable efforts for honest 
laws, his faithfulness to the best good of his party, his 
aggressive determination that the right shall win, we 
add those personal charms of manner just touched upon, 
and that indescribable element in his addresses to the 
people during political canvasses which takes all hearts, 
we have a fair measure of the causes of his popularity^ 


244 


JAMES G. BLAINE. 


though we have but a vague measure of the man. At 
least, however, we know that the real popularity is not 
won by any craft or art known to men ; we know that 
Mr. Blaine’s popularity is real, and that by means of all 
his admirable qualities it would not have been possible 
if they had not been grounded upon an honest man¬ 
hood. 


































A BRIEF RECORD 


^ OF 

THE LIFE OF 


JOHN A. LOGAN. 



•->4 

. ^ 






< 



< S" ‘ n*' 




4 - 


' % 






JOHN A. LOGAN. 


Senator Logan, the Republican candidate for Vice- 
President, has, like Mr. Blaine, been successful in many 
pursuits. lie is a sound and able lawyer, a sagacious 
political manager, and he was an intrepid and brilliant 
general. But it is as a soldier that his solidest fame 
has been won, and the story of his life is in the main a 
military story. The record of campaigns and battles 
when told in brief, as it must be here, bears the rela¬ 
tion to biography that the catalogue of the ships does 
to the Iliad, and as a catalogue, at the end of the ends, is 
no more than a catalogue, it will be useless to attempt 
to give the plain facts a new dress. The summary 
which follows is taken from the New York Times, and 
may be supposed to be impartial : * 

“General Logan was born near what is now Mur- 
physboro’, Jackson County, Ill., February 9, 1824, 
and is the eldest of eleven children. IBs father. Dr. 
Jolin Logan, had come from Ireland to Illinois three 
years before, marrying Elizabeth Jenkins, a Tennessee 
lady. John received his early education from his father 



248 


JOHN A. LOGAN. 


and in such schools as the locality afforded at that time. 
In 1840 he was for a few months one of the students of 
an academy called Shiloh College. He was in his twen¬ 
tieth year when the Mexican war broke out, and he was 
among the first to volunteer. He was chosen lieuten¬ 
ant of one of the companies of the First Illinois Regi¬ 
ment, and was subsequently made adjutant of the regi¬ 
ment. He returned to Illinois in October, 1848, with 
an excellent record. He then began the study of law 
in the office of his uncle, Alexander M. Jenkins, for¬ 
merly Lieutenant-Governor of Illinois. In November, 
1844, he was elected Clerk of Jackson County, and held 
the office until the following year, when he went to 
Louisville to attend lectures in the Law School. Re¬ 
ceiving his diploma in 1851, he was admitted to the Bar, 
and formed a partnership with his uncle. He had many 
qualities that fitted him for the successful practice of 
law. A practical mind, clear and keen perceptions, 
much fertility of resource and unusual ability as a pub¬ 
lic speaker, carried him at once to the front rank of the 
legal fraternity of his immediate field, and before -he 
had been a year in practice, he was elected Prosecutino* 
Attorney of the Third Judicial District of the State. 
He then lived in the town of Benton. • 

It was at the fall election of the same year when he 
was chosen to the State Legislature as the representa¬ 
tive of Jackson and Franklin Counties that the lono* 
public career of John A. Logan had its actual begin- 
ning. Since then he has been almost constantly in the 


JOHN A. LOG A A'. 


249 


civil or military service of his country. He was re¬ 
elected to the State legislature in 1853 and 1854, and 
•in tlie latter year was a Presidential elector and cast his 
vote for James Buchanan. Two years later he was 
elected to the Thirty-sixth Congress by the Democrats 
of the Ninth Congressional District, and served as 
chairman of the Committee on Unfinished Business. 
He was re-elected in i860, the year of the Presidential 
campaign, when Abraham Lincoln was nominated by 
the Republican Convention at Chicago, and Stephen A. 
Douglas by the Democrats at Charleston. John A. 
J^ogan was a Democrat, and warmly advocated the elec- 
tion of Mr. Douglas, but when the events of the suc¬ 
ceeding year were foreshadowed in the attitude of the 
South, liis patriotism, which could not be subordinated 
to partisanship, asserted itself, and he openly declared 
that although he hoped Mr. Lincoln would not be 
elected, yet if he were, and his election should provoke 
an outbreak of the hostile Southern sentiment, he 
“ would shoulder his musket to have him inaugurated.” 
During the session of Congress in the winter of 1860-61 
Mr. J.ogan repeatedly arraigned the Southern members 
for their disloyalty, and asked them how they reconciled 
their open hostility to the Government with their oaths 

to support the Constitution. 

« 

“But Mr. Logan was not destined to remain long on 
the floor of Congress when hostilities to the Union of a 
graver sort had appeared in the open field. He attended 
the special session of Congress called by Mr. Lincoln in 


250 


JOHN A. LOGAN 


the early summer of i86i, but he left his seat in July 
and took his place in the ranks of the Union forces, 
then marching on to meet the enemy in Virginia. The 
battle of Bull Run, in which he bore a brave part, 
though he served in the ranks, proved clearly that a 
much larger force was needed to crush the rebellion 
than was at first supposed. Mr. Logan returned to Illi¬ 
nois, and by a series of stirring and patriotic appeals 
in the southern part of the State rallied thousands of 
volunteers, and himself joined the Thirty-first Regiment 
of Illinois Infantry. He was elected colonel, and the 
regiment was mustered into service on the 13th of Sep¬ 
tember. The regiment was attached to General Mc- 
Clernand’s brigade, and was first under fire at Belmont, 
seven weeks later. In this engagement Colonel Logan 
led a timely bayonet charge, which broke the enemy’s 
lines and saved a portion of the command from capture. 
During the fight he had a horse shot under him and a 
pistol at his side shattered by rebel bullets. He led the 
Thirty-first at Fort Henry, and was among the foremost 
in the gallant assault on Fort Donelson, where he was 
severely wounded and for a time disabled from active 
service. He reported for duty, after his recovery, to 
General Grant at Pittsburg Landing, and not long after 
—March 5, 1862—was promoted to the grade of Briga¬ 
dier-General of Volunteers. In the following May he 
showed himself a brave and skilful gefieral in the siege 
of Corinth, and after its occupation his brigade guarded 
the rail communications with Jackson, Tenn. 


JOHN A. LOGAN. 


251 


“During the summer of 1862 he was importuned to 
become again a candidate for Congress, but declined 
in a letter in which he said : ‘ I have entered the field 
to die, if need be, for this Government, and never ex¬ 
pect to return to peaceful pursuits until the object of 
this war of preservation has become a fact established.’ 
He displayed such skill and bravery in Grant’s cam¬ 
paign of the Northern Mississippi in 1862 and 1863 that he 
was made a major-general, the commission dating from 
November 29, 1862. As the commander of the Third 
Division, Seventeenth Army Corps, under General Mc¬ 
Pherson, he took part in the battle of Fort Gibson, 
fought with distinguished personal bravery at the battle 
of Raymond on the 12th of May, helped drive the 
rebels out of Jackson two days later, and was in the battle 
of Champion Hill, May ii. He led the centre of Gen¬ 
eral McPherson’s command at the siege of Vicksburg, 
and his column first entered the city after the sur¬ 
render, July 4, 1863. He was appointed Military 
Governor of the city, where a gold medal was pre¬ 
sented to him, the boon of honor of the Seventh Army 
Corps. He visited the North in the summer of that 
year, and made several eloquent Union speeches. As 
a specimen of tliose speeches the following extract 
from one delivered at Duquoin, Ill., may be quoted : 

“ ‘ The Government is worth fighting for. It is wortli 
generations and centuries of war. It is worth the lives 
of the best and noblest men in the land. We will fight 
for this Government for the sake of ourselves and our 


252 


JOI/tV A. LOGAIV. 


children. Our little ones shall read in history of the men 
who stood by the Government in its dark and gloomy 
hours, and it shall be the proud boast of many that 
their fathers died in this glorious struggle for American 
liberty. I believe to-day—I believe it honestly—that if 
the people of the North were united and all stood upon 
one platform, as we do in the army, this rebellion would 
be crushed in ninety days. I want to show you the 
reason why more troops ought to be raised. We can 
crush this rebellion. I know it. Why, we have marched 
a little army clear from Cairo to Vicksburg; below, a 
small one has marched from New Orleans to Port 
Hudson. We have opened the Mississippi River. We 
have split the Confederacy in trvo, leaving on one side 
Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri—more terri¬ 
tory than is on the eastern side. We have made a gulf 
that IS impassable for them. We can hurl our strength 

upon one half and whip them, then upon the other and 
whip that.’ 


“ He was stationed at Huntsville, Ala., the followino- 
wmter, having succeeded General Sherman as coin- 
mander of the Fifteenth Army Corps. Early in the 
summer of 1864, the Division of the Mississippi was 
making ready for ‘ Sherman’s march to the sea.’ Gen¬ 
eral Logan led the Army of the Tennessee upon the 
nghtof the grand march, and was successively eno-aged 
>n the battle at Resaca, in the repulse of Hardee’s 
orces at Dallas, at Little Kenesaw Mountain, and in 
the desperate battle of Peach Tree Creek, where Gen- 


JOnM A. LOGAN. 


253 


eral McPherson fell. General Logan at once took 
command, and infusing his troops with the emotions 
which possessed him at the death of his chief, he led them 
with such desperate fury that eight thousand rebel dead 
were left on the field. He was also at the battle of Ezra 
Chapel, July 28th. In fact, he participated in every bat¬ 
tle of that historic campaign, from Missionary Ridge to 
the fall of Atlanta on the 2d of September. After those 
momentous events. General Logan returned to Illinois, 
and during the fall months of the Presidential cam¬ 
paign of that year made many speeches for Lincoln in 
the Western States. He joined his command again at 
Savannah, and marched with Sherman through the 
Carolinas, and, after Johnston’s surrender, to Washing¬ 
ton. On May 23, 1865, he was appointed to succeed 
General Howard in the command of the Army of the 
Tennessee. 

“Thus ended his brilliant army career. In the autumn 
of 1865 President Johnson offered him the position of 
Minister to Mexico, which he declined, and in 1866 he 
was nominated by the Republicans of Illinois to repre¬ 
sent the State at large in the Fortieth Congress, and was 
elected by over sixty thousaiKl majority. He was one of 
the managers on the part of the House in the impeach¬ 
ment trial of Andrew Johnson, in the spring of 1867. 
He was returned to the House of Representatives by 
re-elections in 1868 and 1870, but in 1871 was elected to 
the United States Senate to succeed Senator Yates. 
His first term as Senator expired in 1877, and he failed of 


254 


JOHN A. LOGAN 


re-election, David Davis being chosen in his stead. The 
Republicans in the Illinois Legislature then had only 
two majority on joint ballot, and three of the Republi¬ 
cans voted with the Democrats for Mr. Davis. Two 
years later General Logan was more successful. He 
then succeeded to the seat of Richard J. Oglesby. In 
the Senate he has introduced and supported many bills 
concerning rewards to soldiers, and army matters in 
general. At military reunions he has always been 
active. He was one of the founders of the Grand Army 
of the Republic, which originated at Decatur, Ill., and 
was its first national commander. Apart from these 
matters he has acquired in public life a special repu¬ 
tation from his defence of the findings of the court which 
tried Fitz John Porter.” 

The soldier’s haversack of stories, unpacked before 
every camp-fire, has in these days of peace to put its 
treasures into type, and since General Logan’s nomina¬ 
tion those who remember him in the field have found 
the public journals convenient repositories. Says a war 
correspondent of the York Herald: 

“ Logan belonged to the class of popular volunteer 
generals, and in the West^was regarded somewhat as 
Phil Kearney was in the East. He had all the daring, 
dash, and pugnacity of Kearney and Hooker. I was 
with him nearly all the day before the battle of Resaca, 
Georgia, on May 14, 1864, and slept in an ambulance 
with him the same night—that is, I slept part of the 
night in the ambulance—but he was so thundering mad 


A. /.OGAM 


255 


when awake, and so restless when sleeping, that, for my 
own comfort, I got up and lay down under the wagon 
on the ground. I never saw a madder man than Logan 
was that day and night. He had the advance of 
McPherson’s corps on a flank movement around the 
left of the rebel army at Dalton, and had planted his di¬ 
vision square across their only line of retreat. Just be¬ 
yond a small fordable stream the rebels had built a fort 
commanding a bridge of great importance to them, 
and Logan was preparing to assault it when McPherson, 
his corps commander, came up and stopped the move¬ 
ment, deeming it hazardous. Logan said he could 
carry the works with a single brigade and destroy the 
bridge with his two other brigades, thus cutting off the 
rebel retreat and forcing him to battle with Sherman’s 
one hundred thousand men—quite double that of the 
rebel force. He pleaded with McPherson to let him go 
ahead, proposing to lead tlie assaulting column in per¬ 
son. l"rom pleading he advanced to protestations, and 
then to curses ‘both loud and deep,’ and these became 
almost bitter personal denunciations of McPherson 
when, deciding against an attack, he ordered Logan to 
march back six miles to a strong defensive position and 
fortify it. 

“ It happened that I heard part of this rather stormy 
interview, and the same evening General McPherson 
took occasion to explain to me that he had made this 
retrograde movement in obedience to imperative orders. 
It turned out to be one of the grave mistakes of the 


256 ' JOHN A. 7a) GAN. 

war, and Sherman severely criticised McPherson af¬ 
terward for not taking the risk suggested by Logan, 
though he sustained him in command. Logan’s instinct 
for fighting proved correct on that occasion ; it was 
subsequently discovered that the I'ebel fort at Resaca 
was held by only sixteen hundred dismounted Georgia 
militia cavalrymen. Logan’s veterans could have ‘ run 
over them’ if McPherson had let them loose with ‘ Black 
Jack ’ at their head. 

“ One of the finest illustrations of the magnetic influ¬ 
ence of a single man in the crisis of a battle was fur¬ 
nished by Logan at Peach Tree Creek, a battle fought 
before Atlanta. The rebels had flanked McPherson as 
completely as he had turned their line at Resaca, and 
had attacked him vigorously. McPherson was killed, 
and the command of the whole corps unexpectedly de¬ 
volved in a moment on Logan, and he had not only his 
own but other divisions to look after. He left his own 
immediate command, and in person rallied the First Di¬ 
vision, which, being surprised, was in great confusion. 
It was done by actual personal exertion in the front of 
the line, at a great personal risk. The troops had more 
confidence in Logan than in McPherson, for the reason 
that Logan led, whereas McPherson directed his men ; 
and when the retreating division saw Logan riding 
along their confused lines, they rallied and went vigor¬ 
ously into the fight with a counter-charge on'the rebel 
forces. It was a fair, square illustration of personal 
magnetism of a fearless leader over brave men. It was 


JOHN A. LOGA.W 


257 


a f|uality many of the generals who gained greater mil¬ 
itary distinction than Logan did not possess, and did 
not lay claim to.” 

Lieutenant Merriman, who for a time was General 
Logan’s secretary in the war, relates, in The Waierbiiry 
American^ how General Logan cashiered his own brother- 
in-law, Colonel Osborne. Orders had been issued to 
organize negro regiments. The report came to Logan 
that Osborne had publicly declared to his regiment that 
he had not come there “to light to free the niggers.” 
“ Logan at once sent for his brother-in-law to come 
to headquarters,” says laeutenant Merriman. “ I was 
present when Osborne arrived. Logan asked him if 
the statements were true that he had been talking in 
that way to his regiment. Osborne replied in the affirm¬ 
ative, and repeated the sentiment. Logan roared with 
rage like a lion. I cannot repeat his language, but the 
words came hot and thick from an outraged heart. 
Finally, pausing, he told Osborne he was not fit to com¬ 
mand a Union regiment, and to write out his resigna¬ 
tion at once and be cashiered. Osborne, abashed and 
overawed, obeyed, and Logan wrote approved on the 
back of the paper and forwarded it immediately by an 
aide to General Grant’s headquarters. Before night 
Osborne was without a commission, out of the army, 
and reduced to the position of a mere citizen of Illi- 

• ff * 

nois. 

A considerable part of the committee appointed to 
inform Mr. Blaine of his nomination met in Washing- 


2-58 


JOHN A. LOGAN 


ton June 24, 1884. These were : Turner, of Alabama ; 
Bush, California ; Hastings, Delaware ; Stewart, Flor¬ 
ida ; Brown, Georgia ; Davis, Illinois ; Goodloe, Ken¬ 
tucky ; Merchant, Louisiana ; Walker Blaine, Maine ; 
Gove, Massachusetts ; Lynch, Mississippi ; Howe, Ne¬ 
braska ; Young, Nevada ; Phelps, New Jersey ; Win¬ 
ston, North Carolina; Lee, South Carolina ; Houck, 
Tennessee ; Cuney, Texas; Yost, Virginia ; Thompson, 
West Virginia ; Hill, Washington Territory ; Stebbins, 
Arizona; Pride, Idaho; Murray, Utah; Meldrum, 
Wyoming ; Carson, District of Columbia. They went 
in a body to General Logan's home, and being gathered 
in an apartment of his residence. Chairman Henderson 
said : 

“ Senator Logan : The gentlemen present constitute 
a committee of the Republican Convention recently as¬ 
sembled at Chicago, charged with the duty of commu¬ 
nicating to you the formal notice of your nomina¬ 
tion by that convention as a candidate for Vice-Pres¬ 
ident of the United States. You are not unaware of the 
fact that your name was presented to the convention 
and urged by a large number of the delegates as a can¬ 
didate for President. So soon, however, as it became 
apparent that Mr. Blaine, your colleague on the ticket, 
was the choice of the party for that high office, your 
friends, with those of other competitors, promptly 
yielded their individual preferences to this manifest 
wish of the majority. In tendering you this nomina¬ 
tion, we are able to assure you it was made without 


JOriN A. LOGAAr 


259 


opposition, and with an enthusiasm seldom witnessed 
in the history of nominating conventions. We are grat¬ 
ified to know that in a career of great usefulness and 
distinction you have most efficiently aided in the enact¬ 
ment of those measures of legislation and of constitu¬ 
tional reform in which the convention found special 
cause for party congratulation. The principles enun¬ 
ciated in the platform adopted will be recognized by 
you as the same which have so long governed and con¬ 
trolled your political conduct. 

“The pledges made by the party find guarantee of per¬ 
formance in the fidelity with which you have heretofore 
discharged every trust confided to your keeping. In 
your election, the people of this country will furnish 
new proof of the excellence of our institutions. With¬ 
out wealth, without help from others, without any re¬ 
sources, except those of heart, conscience, intellect, 
energy, and courage, you have won a high place in the 
world’s history, and secured the confidence and affec¬ 
tions of your countrymen. Being one of the people, 
your sympathies are with the people. In civil life, your 
chief care has been to better their condition to secure 
their rights and perpetuate their liberties. When the 
Government was threatened by armed treason, you en¬ 
tered its service as a private, became a commander of 
armies, and are now the idol of the citizen-soldiers of 
the Republic. Such, in the judgment of your party, is 
the candidate it has selected, and in behalf of that party 
we ask you to accept its nomination.” 


26 o 


JOHN A. LOGAN. 


After a brief interval General Logan replied : 

“Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee : 
I receive your visit with pleasure and accept with grati¬ 
tude the sentiments you have so generously expressed 
in the discharge of the duty with which you have been 
intrusted by the National Republican Convention. In¬ 
tending to address you a formal communication shortly 
in accordance with the recognized usage, it would be 
out of place to detain you at this time with remarks 
which properly belong to the official utterances of a 
letter of acceptance. I may be permitted to say, how¬ 
ever, that though I did not seek the nomination of 
Vice-President, I accept it as a trust reposed in me by 
the Republican party, to the advancement of whose 
broad policy upon all questions connected with the 
progress of our Government and our people, I have 
dedicated my best energies, and with this acceptance I 
may properly signify my approval of the platform of 
principles adopted by the convention. I am deeply 
sensible of the honor conferred upon me by my friends 
in so unanimously tendering me this nomination, and I 
sincerely thank them for this tribute. 

“ I am not unmindful of the great responsibilities at¬ 
taching to the office, and, if elected, I shall enter upon 
the performance of its duties with the firm conviction 
that he who has such an unanimous support of his 
party friends as the circumstai^es connected with the 
nomination and your own words, Mr. Chairman, in¬ 
dicate, and consequently such a wealth of counsel to 


JOHN- A. LOGAA^. 


261 

draw upon, cannot fail in the proper discharge of the 
duties commended to him. 

“ I tender you my thanks, Mr. Chairman, for the kind 
expressions you have made, and I offer you and your 
fellQW-committeemen my most cordial greeting.” 

Mrs. Logan was appropriately present at these cere¬ 
monies, for more than is often given to women she has 
been the close companion of her husband. She has ac¬ 
tively shared his successes, and General Logan would 
perhaps say that she has inspired them. 

17 






APPENDIX A. 


THE PLATFORM OF THE REPUBLICAN 

PARTY—1884. 

The Republicans of the United States in National 
Convention assembled renew their allegiance to the 
principles upon which they have triumphed in six suc¬ 
cessive Presidential elections, and congratulate the 
American people on the attainment of so many results 
in legislation and administration by which the Repub¬ 
lican party has, after saving the Union, done so much 
to render its institutions just, equal, and beneficent— 
the safeguard of liberty and the embodiment of the 
best thought and highest purposes of our citizens. 
The Republican party has gained its strength by quick 
and faithful response to the demands of the people for 
the freedom and the equality of all men ; for a united 
nation, assuring the rights of all citizens ; for the ele¬ 
vation of labor ; for an honest currency ; for purity in 
legislation, and for integrity and accountability in all 
departments of the Government ; and it accepts anew 
the duty of leading in the work of progress and reform. 

We lament the death of President Garfield, whose 


264 


APPENDIX. 


sound statesmanship, long conspicuous in Congress, 
gave promise of a strong and successful administration, 
a promise fully realized during the short period of his 
office as President of the United States. His distin¬ 
guished success in war and in peace has endeared him 
to the hearts of the American people. 

In the administration of President Arthur we recog- 
nize a wise, conservative, and patriotic policy, under 
which the country has been blessed with remarkable 
prosperity, and we believe his eminent services are en¬ 
titled to and will receive the hearty approval of every 
citizen. 

It is the first duty of a good government to protect 
the rights and promote the interests of its own people. 
The largest diversity of industry is most productive of 
general prosperity and of the comfort and independence 
of the people. We therefore demand that the imposi¬ 
tion of duties on foreign imports shall be made, not 
for revenue only, but that in raising the requisite 
revenues for the Government such duties shall be so 
levied as to afford security to our diversified industries 
and protection to the rights and wages of the laborer, 
to the end that active and intelligent labor, as well as 
capital, may have its just reward, and the laboring man 
his full share in the national prosperity. 

Against the so-called economic system of the Dem¬ 
ocratic party which would degrade our labor to the for¬ 
eign standard, we enter our earnest protest. The Dem¬ 
ocratic party has failed completely to relieve the people 


APPEND/X. 


265 

of the burden, of unnecessary taxation by a wise reduc¬ 
tion of the surplus. 

The Republican party pledges itself to correct the 
inequalities of the tariff, and to reduce the surplus, not 
by the vicious and indiscriminate process of horizontal 
reduction, but by such methods as will relieve the tax¬ 
payer without injuring the laborer or the great product¬ 
ive interests of the country. 

We recognize the importance of sheep husbandry in 
the United States, the serious depression which it is 
now experiencing, and the danger threatening its future 
prosperity ; and Ave therefore respect the demands of 
the representatives of this important agricultural inter¬ 
est for a readjustment of duty upon foreign wool, in 
order that such industry shall have full and adequate 
protection. 

We have always recommended the best money known 
to tlie civilized world, and we urge that an effort be 
made to unite all commercial nations in the establish¬ 
ment of an international standard, Avhich shall fix for 
all the relative value of gold and silver coinage.* 

The regulation of commerce with foreign nations and 
between the States is one of the most important prero¬ 
gatives of the General Government, and the Republican 
partv distinctly announces its purpose to support such 
legislation as will fully and efficiently carry out the con¬ 
stitutional power of Congress over interstate commerce. 

The principle of the public regulation of railway cor¬ 
porations is a wise and salutary one for the protection 


266 


APPENDIX. 


of all classes of the ’people, and we favor legislation 
that shall prevent unjust discrimination and excessive 
charges for transportation, and that shall secure to the 
people and to the railways alike the fair and equal pro¬ 
tection of the laws. 

We favor the establishment of a national bureau of 
labor, the enforcement of the eight-hour law, and a 
wise and judicious system of general education by ade¬ 
quate appropriation from the national revenues wher¬ 
ever the same is needed. We believe that everywhere 
the protection to a citizen of American birth must be 
secured to citizens of American adoption, and we favor 
the settlement of national differences by international 
arbitration. 

The Republican party, having its birth in a hatred of 
slave labor and in a desire that all men may be free and 
equal, is unalterably opposed to placing our working¬ 
men in competition with any form of servile labor, 
whether at home or abroad. In this spirit we denounce 
the importation of contract labor, whether from Europe 
or Asia, as an offence against the spirit of American in¬ 
stitutions, and we pledge ourselves to sustain the pres¬ 
ent law restricting Chinese immigration, and to provide 
such further legislation as is necessary to carry out its 
purposes. 

The reform of the civil service, auspiciously begun 
under Republican administration, should be completed 
by the further extension of the reformed system, already 
established by law, to all the grades of the service to 


APPEND/X. 


267 


which it is applicable. The spirit and purpose of the 
reform should be observed in all executive appoint¬ 
ments, and all laws at variance with the objects of exist¬ 
ing reformed legislation should be repealed, to the end 
that the danger to free institutions which lurks in the 
power of official patronage may be wisely and effective¬ 
ly avoided. 

The public lands are a heritage of the people of the 
United States, and should be reserved, as far as possi¬ 
ble, for small holdings by actual settlers. We are op¬ 
posed to the acquisition of large tracts of these lands 
by corporations or individuals, especially where such 
holdings are in the hands of non-resident aliens, and we 
will endeavor to obtain such legislation as will tend to 
correct this evil. We demand of Congress the speedy 
forfeiture of all land grants which have lapsed by reason 
of non-compliance with acts of incorporation, in all 
cases where there has been no attempt in good faith to 
perform the conditions of such grants. 

The grateful thanks of the American people are due 
to the Union soldiers and sailors of the late war, and 
the Republican party stands pledged to suitable pen¬ 
sions for all who were disabled and for the widows and 
orphans of those who died in the war. The Republican 
party also pledges itself to the repeal of the limitation 
contained in the arrears act of 1879, so that all invalid 
soldiers shall share alike, and their pensions shall begin 
with the date of disability or discharge, and not with 
the date of their application. 


268 


APPENDIX. 


The Republican party favors a policy which shall 
keep us from entangling alliances with foreign nations, 
and which shall give the right to expect that foreign 
nations shall refrain from meddling in American affairs 
—the policy which seeks peace and can trade with all 
powers, but especially with those of the western hemi¬ 
sphere. 

We demand the restoration of our navy to its old- 
time strengtli and efficiency, that it may, in any sea, 
protect the rights of American citizens and the interests 
of American commerce, and we call upon Congress to 
remove the burdens under which American shipping 
has been depressed, so that it may again be true that 
we have a commerce which .leaves no sea unexplored 
and a navy which takes no law from superior force. 

Resolved., That appointments by the President to 
offices in the Territories should be made from the bona 
fide citizens and residents of the Territories wherein 
they are to serve. 

Resolved., That it is the duty of Congress to enact such 
laws as shall promptly and effectually suppress the sys¬ 
tem of polygamy within our territory, and divorce the 
political from the ecclesiastical power of the so-called 
Mormon Church, and that the law so enacted should be 
rigidly enforced by the civil authorities if possible, and 
by the military if need be. 

The people of the United States, in their organized 
capacity, constitute a nation and not a mere confed¬ 
eracy of States. The National Government is supreme 


^1 ppr.Nn/x. 


269 


within the sphere of its national duty, but the States 
have reserved rights which should be faithfully main¬ 
tained ; each should be guarded with jealous care so 
that the harmony of our system of government may be 
preserved and the Union be kept inviolate. The per¬ 
petuity of our institutions rests upon the maintenance 
of a free ballot, an honest count, and correct returns. 

We denounce the fraud and violence practised by the 
Democracy in Southern States by which the will of the 
voter is defeated, as dangerous to the preservation of 
free institutions, and we solemnly arraign the Demo¬ 
cratic party as being the guilty recipient of the fruits 
of such fraud and violence. We extend to the Republi¬ 
cans of the South, regardless of their former party affil¬ 
iations, our cordial sympathy, and pledge to them our 
utmost earnest efforts to promote the passage of such 
legislation as will secure to every citizen, of whatever 
race and color, the full and complete recognition, pos¬ 
session, and exercise of all civil and political rights. 


APPENDIX B. 


SPEECH OF MR. BLAINE IN THE HOUSE ON 

NATIONAL FINANCE, FEBRUARY lo, 1876. 

Mr. Chairman : The honor of the National Govern¬ 
ment and the prosperity of the American- people are 

alike menaced by those who demand the perpetuation 

• 

of the irredeemable paper currency. For more than two 
years the country has been suffering from prostration in 
business; confidence returns but slowly ; trade revives 
only partially, and to-day, with capital unproductive and 
labor unemployed, we find ourselves in the midst of an 
agitation respecting the medium with which business 
transactions shall be carried on. LTntil this question is 
definitely adjusted, it is idle to expect that full measure 
of prosperity to which the energies of our people and 
the resources of the land entitle us. In the way of that 
adjustment one great section of the Democratic party— 
possibly its controlling power—stubbornly stands to-day. 
The Republicans, always true to the primal duty of sup¬ 
porting the nation’s credit, have now cast behind them 
all minor differences and dissensions on the financial 


APP/'LYD/X. 


271 


question, and have gradually consolidated their strength 
against inflation. The currency, therefore, becomes of 
necessity a prominent political issue, and those Demo¬ 
crats who are in favor of honest dealing by the Govern¬ 
ment and honest money for the people may be compelled 
to act as they did in that still graver exigency when the 
existence of the Government itself was at stake. 

While this question should be approached in no spirit 
of partisan bitterness, it has yet become so entangled 
with party relations that no intelligent discussion of it 
can be had without giving its political history, and if 
tliat history bears severely on the Democratic party, its 
defenders must answer the facts and not quarrel with 
their presentation. Firmly attached to one political party 
myself, firmly believing that parties in a free govern¬ 
ment are as healthful as they are inevitable, I still think 
there are questions about which parties should never 
' asfree to disasjree ; and of these is the essential nature 
and value of the circulating medium. And it is a fact 
of special weight and significance that up to the paper- 
money era which was precipitated upon us during the 
rebellion as one of war’s inexorable necessities, there 
never was a political party in this country that believed 
in any other than the specie standard for our currency. 
If there was any one principle that was rooted and 
grounded in tlie minds of -our earlier statesmen, it was 
the evil of paper money ; and no candid man of any 
party can read the Constitution of the United States and 
not be convinced that its framers intended to defend 


2/2 


yiPPEAWIX. 


and protect our people from the manifold perils of an 
irredeemable currency. 

The country is suffering under one of those periodi¬ 
cal revulsions in trade common to all commeroial na¬ 
tions, and which thus far no wisdom of legislation has 
been able to avert. The natural restlessness of a peo¬ 
ple so alive and alert as ours looks for an instant remedy, 
and the danger in such a condition of the public mind 
is that something may be adopted that will ultimately 
deepen the disease rather than lay the groundwork for 
an effectual cure. Naturally enough, at such a time 
the theories for relief are numerous, and we have mar¬ 
vellous recipes offered whereby the people shall be en¬ 
abled to pay the dollar they owe with less than loo 
cents ; while those who are caught with such a delusion 
seemingly forget that, even if this be so, they must like¬ 
wise receive less than loo cents for the dollar that is 
due them. Whether the dollar that they owe to-day 
or the dollar that is due them to-morrow will have the 
greater or less number of cents depends on the shifting 
of causes which they can neither control nor foresee ; 
and therefore all certain calculation in trade is set at 
defiance, and those branches of business which take on 
the form of gambling are by a financial paradox most 
secure and most promising. 

THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE. 

Uncertainty as to the value of the currency from day 
to day is injurious to all honest industry. And while 


APPEND/X. 


-) 

/ 0 

thjit whicli is known as the debtor interest should be 
fairly and justly considered in tlie shaping of the meas¬ 
ure for specie resumption, there is no justice in asking 
for inflation on its behalf. Rather there is the gravest 
injustice ; for you must remember that there is a large 
class of most deserving persons who would be continu¬ 
ally and remorselessly robbed by such a policy. I mean 
the labor of the country tliat is compelled to live from 
and by its daily earnings. The savings banks, which rep¬ 
resent the surplus owned by tlie laborers of the nation, 
have deposits to-day exceeding $1,100,000,000—more 
than the entire capital stock and deposits of the Na¬ 
tional banks. The pensioners, who represent the patriotic 
suffering of the country, have a capitalized investment 
of $600,000,000. Here are $1,700,000,000 incapable of 
receiving anything but instant and lasting injury from 
inflation. Whatever impairs the purchasing power of 
the dollar correspondingly decreases the resources of 
the savings-bank depositor and the pensioner. The 
pensioner’s loss would be absolute, but it would prob¬ 
ably be argued tliat the laborer wordd receive compen¬ 
sation by his nominally larger earnings. But this would 
prove totally delusive, for no possible augmentation of 
wages in a time of inflation will ever keep pace with a 
still greater increase in the price of the commodities 
necessary to sustain life, except—and mark the excep¬ 
tion—under the condition witnessed during the war, 
when the number of laborers was continually reduced by 

the demand for men to serve in the army and navy. 
iS 


2/4 


APPRiVDIX. 


And those honest-minded people who recall the start¬ 
ling activity of trade and the large profits during the 
• war, and attribute both to an inflated currency, commit 
the error of leaving out the most important element of 
the calculation. They forget that the Government was 
a customer for nearly four years at the rate of ^2,000,- 
000 or ^3,000,000 per day, buying countless quantities 
of all the staple articles; they forget that the number 
of consumers was continually enlarging as our armed 
force grew to its gigantic proportions, and that the 
number of producers was by the same cause continually 
growing less, and that there was presented, on a scale 
of unprecedented magnitude, that simple problem, fa¬ 
miliar alike to the political economic and the village 
trader, of the demand being greater than the supply, 
and a consequent rise in the price. Had the Govern¬ 
ment been able to conduct the war on a gold basis and 
provided the coin for its necessarily large and lavish ex¬ 
penditure, a rise in the price of labor and a rise in the 
value of commodities would have been inevitable. And 
the rise of both labor and commodities in gold would 
have been for the time as marked as in paper, adding, 
of course, the depreciation of the latter to its scale of 
prices. While the delusion of creating wealth by the 
issue of irredeemable paper currency may lead to any 
number of absurd propositions, the advocates of the 
heresy seem to have settled down on two measures—or 
rather one measure composed of two parts—namely : To 
abolish the National Banks, and then have the Govern- 




.ir/Vi,VD/x, 


275 



ment issue legal tenders at once to the amount of the 
bank circulation, and add to the volume thereafter, from 
time to time, “according to the wants of trade.” The 
two propositions are so inseparably connected that I 
shall discuss them together. 

THE NATIONAL BANK SYSTEM. 

The National Bank System, Mr. Chairman, was one 
of the results of the war, and the credit of its origin be¬ 
longs to the late Salmon P. Chase, then Secretary of 
the Treasury. And it may not be unprofitable just 
here to recall to the House the circumstances which, at 
that time, made tile National Banks a necessity to the 
Government. At the outbreak of the war there were 
considerably over a thousand State Banks, of different 
degrees of responsibility or irresponsibility, scattered 
over the country. Their charters demanded the redemp¬ 
tion of their bills in specie, and under the pressure of 
this requirement their aggregate circulation was kept 
within decent limits; but the amount of it was left, in 
most instances, to the discretion of the directors, and 
not a few of these-banks issued ten dollars of bills for 
one of specie in their vaults. With the passage of the 
legal-tender act, however, followed by an enormous is¬ 
sue of Government notes, the State Banks would no 
longer be required to redeem in specie, and woidd, 
therefore, at once flood the country witli their own bills, 
and take from the Government its resource in that di- 


2^6 


Arpj^jvn/x. 


rection. To restrict and limit their circulation, and to 
make the banks as helpful as possible in the great work 
of sustaining the Government’s finances, the National 
Bank act was passed. This act required, in effect, that 
every bank should loan its entire capital stock to the 
Government, or, in other words, invest it in Govern¬ 
ment bonds ; and that, on depositing these bonds with 
the Treasurer of the United States, the bank might re¬ 
ceive not exceeding ninety per cent, of this amount in 
circulating notes, the Government holding the bonds 
for the protection of the bill-holder in case the bank 
should fail. And that, in brief, is precisely what a Na¬ 
tional Bank is to-day. I do not say the system is per¬ 
fect, I do not feel called upon to rush to its advocacy 
or defence. I do not doubt as we go forward we may 
find many points in which the system may be improved. 
But this I am bold to maintain : That, contrasted with 
any other system of banking that this country has ever 
had, it' is immeasurably superior ; and whoever asks, 
as some Democrats now do, for its abolition, with a view 
of getting back any system of State Banks, is a blind 
leader ; and a very deep ditch of disorder and disaster 
awaits the followers, if the people should ever be so 
blind as to take that fatal step. It is greatly to be de¬ 
plored, Mr. Chairman, that many candid men have con¬ 
ceived the notion that it would be saving to the people 
if all banks could be dispensed with and the circulatino- 
medium be furnished by the Government issuing legal 
tenders. I do not stop'^here to argue that this would be 


APPEN'DIX. 


277 


in violation of the Government’s pledge not to issue 
more than §400,000,000 of its own notes. I merely re¬ 
mark that that pledge is binding in honor until legal 
tenders are redeemable in coin on presentation; and 
when that point is reached, there will be no desire, as 
certainly there will be no necessity, for the Government 
issuing additional notes. .The great and, to my mind, 
unanswerable objection to this scheme is that it places 
the currency wholly in the power and under the direc¬ 
tion of Congress. Now, Congress always has been, 
and always will be, governed by a partisan majority, 
representing one of the political parties of the country, 
and the proposition, therefore, reduces itself to thi 
that the circulating medium, instead of having a fixed, 
determinate value, shall be shifted, and changed, 
manipulated according to the supposed needs of “ the 
party.” I profess, Mr. Chairman, to have some knowl¬ 
edge of the American Congress ; its general character ; 
its personnel, its scope, its power. I think, on the 
whole, it is a far more patriotic, intelligent, and upright 
body of men than it generally gets credit for in the 
country; but at the same time I can conceive of no as¬ 
semblage of reputable gentlemen in the United States 
more utterly unfitted to determine from time to time 
the amount of circulation required by the “wants of 
trade.” But indeed, no body of men could be entrusted 
with that power. Even if it were possible to trust their 
tliscretion, their integrity would be constantly under 
siispicion. If they performed their duties with the pu- 



2/8 


AFPEiVDIX. 


rity of an angel of light, they could not successfully 
repel those charges which always follow where the 
temptation to do wrong is powerful and the way easy. 
Experience would very soon demonstrate that no more 
corrupting device, no wilder or more visionary project, 
ever entered the brain of the schemer or the empiric. 

If the people of the United States were fully awake 
and aroused to their interests, and could see things as 
they are, instead of increasing the power of Congress 
over the currency they would by the shortest practi¬ 
cable process divorce the two, completely and forever. 
And tins can be done finally, effectually, irreversibly by 
Ue resumption of specie payment. Why, it is hardly an 
exaggeration to say that ever since the Government 
was compelled to resort to irredeemable currency dur- 
ing the v/ar, the assembling of Congress and its con¬ 
tinuance in session have been the most disturbing ele¬ 
ments in the business of the country. It is literally 
true that no man can tell what a day may bring forth. 
One large interest looks hopefully to contraction and 
the lowering of the gold premium ; another is ruined 
uYiless there is such a movement toward expansion as 
will send gold up. Each side, of course, endeavors to 
influence and convince Congress. Both sides naturallv 
have their sympathizing advocates on this floor, and 
hence the substantial interests of the country are kept 
in a feverish, doubtful, speculative state. Men’s minds 
are turned from honest industry to schemes of financial 
gambling, the public morals suffer, old-fashioned in- 


APPEiVD/X. 


2/9 


tegrity is forgotten, enduring prosperity with honest 
gains and quiet contentment is rendered impossible. 
We have suifered thus far in perhaps as liglit a degree 
as could be expected under the circumstances ; but 
once adopt the insane idea that all currency sliall be 
issued directly by the Government, and that Congress 
shall be the judge of the amount demanded by the 
wants of trade,” and you have this country adrift, rud¬ 
derless, on a sea of troubles shoreless and soundless. 

THE LEGAL-TENDER CLAUSE NECESSARY. 

But whether we shall succeed or shall fail in restor¬ 
ing to United States notes the funding privilege with 
which they were originally endowed, I must here record 
my earnest protest against the policy of repealing the 
legal-tender clause which has given to these notes their 
great strength as a circulating medium. I cannot’see 
how the Government can consistently deprive them of 
their legal-tender quality until it is ready to redeem 
them in coin on presentation ; and when it is so ready 
to redeem them, what need or advantage will there be 
in raising the question 1 And I have never heard any 
argument at all satisfactory to my mind that the repeal 
of the legal-tender clause would tend to make re¬ 
sumption any easier. On the contrary, it seems to me 
that it would render resumption far more difficult than 
it will otherwise prove ; that it would throw an undue 
share of the burden on the banks ; that it would force 


28 o 


APPENDIX. 


them into the most rigid contraction, and needlessly 
cripple their power of discount, thus plunging the whole 
country into confusion, disturbing credits, embarrass¬ 
ing payments, fatally deranging business, and creating 
wide-spread distress among the people. It would be a 
peculiarly severe blow to the debtor class, and would 
make resumption to them the signal of bankruptcy 
and ruin. All wise legislation toward resumption will 
take'care that no needless burden be thrown on those 
who have debts to pay, and that in the transition the 
banks shall be kept in such a condition as shall make 
them as helpful as possible to the general community. 
But this policy Avould drive the banks into a struggle 
for self-preservation in which debtors would necessarily 
be sacrificed. If I correctly apprehend the sound pub¬ 
lic judgment on this question, there is no desire to de¬ 
stroy the legal-tender character of the note, but a settled 
determination to bring it to a par with coin, and by this 
means to bring every bank-note to the same standard. 
This policy will restore the coin of the country, of 
which we are producing eighty millions per annum, to 
active circulation in the channels of trade, and Avill re¬ 
sult not only in making our money better, but assured¬ 
ly more plentiful among the people. 

It is a humiliating fact that producing as we do a far 
larger amount of precious metals than all the rest of 
the world, we drive it into export because we Avill 
not create a demand for it at home. And the miners 
of the Pacific slope are furnishing the circulating me- 


APPENDIX. 


281 

dium for every country of the civilized world except 
their own, whose financial policy to-day outlaws and 
expatriates the product of their labor. The act pro¬ 
viding' for resumption in 1879 requires, in the judg¬ 
ment of the Secretary of the Treasury, some additional 
legislation to make it practical and effective. As it 
stands, it fixes a date but gives no adequate process, 
and the paramount duty of Congress is to provide a 
process. And in all legislation looking to that end it 
must be borne in mind that, unless we move in harmony 
with the great business interests of the country, we 
shall assuredly fail. Specie payment can only be 
brought about by wise and well-considered legislation, 
based on the experience of other nations, embodying 
the matured wisdom of the country, healthfully promot¬ 
ing all legitimate business, and carefully avoiding 
everything that may tend to create fear and mistrust 
among the people. In other words, as the outgrowth 
of legislation is confidence, public and private, general 
and individual. To-day we are suffering from the tim¬ 
idity of capital, and so long as the era of doubt and un¬ 
certainty prevails, that timidity will continue and in¬ 
crease. Steps toward inflation will make it chronic ; 
unwise steps toward resumption will not remove it. 

We will have discharged our full duty in Congress, if 
we can mature a measure which will steadily advance 
our currency to the specie standard, and at the same 
time work in harmony with the reviving industries and 
great commercial wants of the country. In any event, 



282 


A PPENDIX. 


Mr. Chairman, whatever we may do, or whatever we 
may leave undone on this whole financial question, 
let us not delude ourselves with the belief that we can 
escape the specie standard. It rules us to-day, and 
has ruled us throughout the whole legal-tender pe¬ 
riod, just as absolutely as though we were paying and 
receiving coin daily. Our work, our fabrics, our 
commodities, are all measured by it, and so long as we 
cling to irredeemable paper we have all the burdens 
and disadvantages of the gold standard, with none of its 
aids, and gains, and profits. “The thing which hath 
been is the thing which shall be.” The great law-giver 
of antiquity records in the very opening chapters of 
Genesis that “ the gold of the land of Havilah is good.” 
And with another precious metal it has maintained its 
rank to this day. No nation has ever succeeded in es¬ 
tablishing any other standard of value ; no nation has 
ever made this experiment except at great cost and sor¬ 
row ; and the advocates of irredeemable money to-day 
are but asking us to travel the worn and weary road 
travelled so many times before—a road that has always 
ended in disaster, and sometimes in disgrace. 


APPENDIX C. 


IION. WILLIAM WALTER PHELPS ON THE 
CHARGES AGAINST MR. BLAINE. 

To THE Editor of the Evening Post : 

On April ytli you made formal charges against James 
G. Blaine. They are tlie same which you made eight 
years ago, and which were, I think, at that time satis¬ 
factorily answered ; lest others, however, may like your¬ 
self have forgotten everything except the misstate¬ 
ments, you must permit me to remind you of the facts. 
I think I may claim some qualifications for the task. 
I liavc long had a close personal intimacy with Mr. 
Blaine, and during many years have had that knowledge 
and care of Ids moneved interests which men absorbed 
in public affairs are not inapt to devolve upon friends 
vrho have had financial training and experience. I do not 
see how one man can know another better than I know 
Mr. Blaine, aAd he has to-day my full confidence and 
warm regard. I am myself somewhat known in the city 
of New York, and think I have some personal rank with 
vou and your readers. Am I claiming too much in 
I laiming that there is not one among you who would 



284 


AFTENDIX. 


regard me as capable of an attempt to mislead the pub¬ 
lic in any way ? With this personal allusion—pardon¬ 
able, if not demanded, under the circumstances—I pro¬ 
ceed to consider your charges. 

The first charge is really the one upon which all the 
others hinge. I give it in full and in your own language, 
only italicizing some of your words, in order that my 
answer may be clearer. You say : 

In the spring session of Congress in 1869, a bill was 
brought before the House of Representatives which 
sought to renew a land grant to the Little Rock & 
Fort Smith Railroad, of Arkansas, in which some of Mr. 
Blaine's friends were interested; that an attempt to defeat 
it by an amendment was made, and the promoters were 
in despair ; that at this juncture Mr. Blaine, being then 
Speaker of the House, sent a message to General Logan, 
to make •the point of order that the amendment was 
not germane to the purposes of the bill ; that this point 
of order was accordingly raised and promptly sustained 
by Mr. Blaine as Speaker, and the bill was in this manner 
saved ; that Air. Blaine wrote at once to the promoters^ calling 
attention to the sendee he had rendered theni^ andfinally^ after 
some negotiations^ secured from them, as their reward for it, 
his appointment as selling agent of the bonds of the 
road on commission in Maine, and received a number 
of such bonds as his percentage ; that the leading fea¬ 
ture of this transaction appeared in two letters of his 
afterward made public, dated, respectively, June 29 and 
October 4, 1869. 


APPEiVD/X. 285 

\our error is in the facts. Mi*. Blaine’s friends were 
not connected with the Fort Smith & Little Rock Road 
at the time of the passage of this bill. Those to whom 
you refer as his friends are Caldwell and Fisher. The 
bill passed in April, 1869. In April, 1869, Mr. Blaine did 
not know that there was any such man as Caldwell ; and 
Fisher, who was Mr. Blaine’s friend, did not know that 
there was any such enterprise as the Little Rock Rail¬ 
road in the world. The evidence of these assertions 
was before Congress, was uncontradicted, and is 
within your reach. On the 29th of June, nearly eighty 
days after Congress had adjourned, Mr. Blaine, from 
.his home in Maine, wrote to Fisher and spoke of 
Fisher’s “offer to admit him to a share in the new rail¬ 
road enterprise.” Fisher had introduced the subject to 
Mr. Blaine for the first time a week before at the great 
music festival at Boston. He told him there that Mr. 
Caldwell, whom Mr. Blaine had not yet seen, had now 
obtained control of the enterprise and had invited 
Fisher to join him. At that time Fisher was a sugar 
refiner of considerable wealth in Boston, had been a 
partner of Mr. Blaine’s brother-in-law, and through him 
had made Mr. Blaine’s acquaintance. The offer Mr. 
Blaine refers to in his letter was Fisher’s offer to induce 
Caldwell, if he could, to let Mr. Blaine have a share in 
the bed-rock of the enterprise. Mr. Fisher failed to do 
this, and Mr. Blaine never secured any interest in tlic 
buildineof the Fort Smith & Little Rock Railroad. What 
interest, then, did Mr. Blaine obtain ? An interest in the 


286 


ATPEhWTX. 


securities of the company. Flow ? By purchase, on 
the same terms as they were sold to all applicants on 
the Boston market; sold to Josiah Bardwell, to Elisha 
Atkins, and to other reputable merchants. He negotiated 
for a block of the securities, which were divided, as is 
usual in such enterprises, into three kinds, first mort¬ 
gage bonds, second mortgage bonds, and stock. The 
price, I think, was three for one. That is, the purchaser 
got first mortgage bonds for his money, and an equal 
amount of second mortgage or land-grant bonds, and of 
stock thrown in as a basis of possible profit. I may be 
mistaken as to the price, but I think not. I went my¬ 
self at tills time into several adventures of the kind at 
that ratio, and have always understood that Senator 
Grimes and his friends got their interests in the Burling¬ 
ton & Missouri Road, a branch of the Union Pacific, 
on the basis of three for one. It was the common ratio 
at that era of speculation. 

Mr. Blaine conceived the idea that he might retain 
the second mortgage bonds as profit, and sell the first 
mortgage bonds with the stock as a bonus. He believed 
the first mortgage bonds were good, and he disposed of 
them to his neighbors in that faith, and with the deter¬ 
mination to shield them from loss in case of disaster. 
Disaster came. The enterprise, like so many others of 
the kind, proved a disappointment, and the bonds de¬ 
preciated. Mr. Blaine redeemed them all. In one or 
two cases only had he given a guarantee. In none 
others was there any legal obligation, but he recognized 


APPENDIX. 


20/ 


a moral claim, and he obeyed it to his own pecuniary 
loss. I cannot but feel that the purchasers of these 
bonds would have fared worse had they been compelled 
to look to many of those who have sought to give an 
odious interpretation to Mr. Blaine’s honorable con- 
.duct. The arrangement for the purchase of the block 
of securities was made in June or Julv. The sales of 
tlie first mortgage bonds out of the block were con¬ 
tinued through the months of July, August, and Sep¬ 
tember, 18^69. The transaction was nearly closed when, 
in the letter of October 4th, Mr. Blaine wrote to Mr. 
Fisher and told him the parliamentary story of the 9th 
of April. Mr. Blaine had come across it while looking 
over the Congressional Globe., with a natural curiosity 
to see what liad been his decisions during the first six 
weeks of his Speakership, and ho wrote of it to Fisher 
as an item in the legislative history of tlie enterprise 
into which they had both subsequently entered. It con¬ 
cerned a bill to. renew a land grant, made long before 
the war, to the Little Rock & Fort Smith Railroad. 
I'he bill had passed the Senate without opposition, and 
there was no objecting to it in the House ; but the ad¬ 
vocates of the Memphis, El Paso, & Pacific Railroad 
bill souglU to attach their bill to it as an amendment. 
Tliis El Paso bill was known at the time as General 
Fremont’s scheme-, and had been urged upon Congress 
before. It was unpopular, and was openly opposecTby 
(General Logan. Wedded to the Little Rock bill it 
would gain strength, but the Little Rock bill would lose 


2o8 


APPENDIX. 


strength, and a just measure, universally approved, 
would be killed in the effort to pull through with it this 
objectionable measure which was universally disap¬ 
proved. Mr. Blaine’s message to Fisher will tell the 
rest of the story. Rewrote: “In this dilemma Roots, 
the Arkansas member, came to me to know what on 
earth he could do under the rules, for he said it was 
vital to his constituents that the bill should pass. I 
told him that the amendment was entirely out of order, 
because not germain ; but he had not sufficient confi¬ 
dence in his knowledge of the rules to make the point. 
But lie said'General Logan was opposed to the Fre¬ 
mont scheme and would probably make it. I sent my 
page to General Logan, with the suggestion, and he at 
once made the point. I could not do otherwise than 
sustain it, and so the bill was freed from the mischiev¬ 
ous amendment and at once passed without objection.” 
Mr. Blaine added these very significant words : At that 
time I had never seen Mr. Caldwell^ but you can tell him that 
without knowing it I did him a great favor. ... I 
thought the point would interest both-you and Mr. 
Caldwell, though occurring before either of you engaged in 
the enterprise.'' 

This seems, Mr. Editor, to dispose of your first charge. 
The bill was a just one, and Mr. Blaine’s friends had 
no interest in it when it passed the house. Eighty days 
aftel- the House adjourned Mr. Blaine asked his 
friends, who had in the meantime taken hold of the 
enterprise, and had offered him some interest, to let him 


APPEA'DIX. 


289 


ill iis a partner. They refused ; they did, however, sell 
him a block of securities on the same terms they sold 
them to others, and it proved an unfortunate purchase, 
for he sold them out among his friends believing them 
valuable, and took them all back when they depreciated 
in value. The letter of Mr. Blaine, written long after 
the transaction, is a complete vindication. To give it a 
semblance of evil you assign it a date six months before 
it was actually written. The late Judge Black, after an 
investigation of the whole subject, declared in his char¬ 
acteristic style “that Mr. Blaine’s letter proved that the 
charge (which you repeat against him) was not only 
untrue but impossible, and would continue so to prove 
'until tlie Gregorian calendar could be turned around 
and October made to precede April in the stately pro¬ 
cession of the year.” 

Your second charge consists of two parts. The first 
part is that “ Mr. Blaine wrongfully asserted that the 
Little Rock &' Fort Smith road derives its life and 
value and franchise wholly from the State of Arkansas, 
whereas the evidence subsequently taken disclosed the 
fact that the road derives the value on which tliese 
bond^ were based from the act of Congress of which 
Mr. Blaine secured tlie passage.” It will be found that 
you have inaccurately quoted Mr. Blaine’s language, 
or rather that you put language into his mouth that he 
never used. What Mr. Blaine did say was, “the Rail¬ 
road Company derived its life, value, and franchises 
from the State of Arkansas.” And Mr. Blaine stated the 


19 


290 


APPEA^DIX. 


exact truth. What are the facts ? More than thirty years 
ago Congress granted to the States of Missouri and Ar¬ 
kansas a certain quantity of public lands to aid in the 
construction of certain lines of railway. The franchises 
which should be granted to the companies which should 
l)uild the road were expressly left by Congress to the 
Legislatures of the States. Mr. Blaine spoke therefore 
with absolute precision of language, as he generally 
does, when he stated “ that the Little Rock Railway 
Company derived its life, value, and franchises.” Just as 
the Illinois Central Railroad Company derives its life, 
value, and franchises from the State of Illinois, though 
enriched by a land-grant from the United States, just as 
the Little Rock road was. 

The second part of your second charge is that Mr. 
Blaine did not speak truthfully when he said that he 
“ bought the bonds at precisely the same rates as 
others paid.” There is no evidence anywhere to sus¬ 
tain this accusation. I have already said that any per¬ 
son could negotiate for them on the one-for-three basis, 
just as Mr. Blaine did, and many availed themselves 
of the opportunity. The price paid was not in the 
least affected by the fact that Mr. Blaine had already ar¬ 
ranged to sell the securities at a lugher price than he 
paid for them. Lie did this with the determination, 
honestly maintained, that he would make good any loss 
that might accrue to the purchasers. These sales did 
not change the price paid to Fisher, and the proof that 
they did not is the fact that Mr. Blaine paid it to him 


A PPK.YDIX. 


291 


in fail. You speak in this connection of Mr. Bond 
being appointed an agent to sell the bonds of the com¬ 
pany. No such appointment was ever made and no evi¬ 
dence suggests it. Mr. Blaine negotiated for his secur¬ 
ities at a given price, which was paid in full to Mr. 
Fisher. 

Your third formal charge relates to an alleged 
connection of Mr. Blaine with a share in the Northern 
Pacific enterprise. You charge this in the face of the 
fact that in Mr. Blaine’s letter, in which you find the 
subject referred to, was his distinct asseveration that he 
“could not himself touch the share.” Have you seen 
any evidence that he did ? I have not. The Northern 
Pacific Railroad Company has been organized and reor¬ 
ganized, and recently reorganized a second time. Its 
records of ownership and interest have passed under the 
official inspection of at least a hundred men, many of 
whom are political enemies, and some of whom are to 
my knowledge personal enemies of Mr. Blaine, and there 
has never been a suggestion or hint from any of these 
that in any form whatever Mr. Blaine had the remotest 
interest in the Northern Pacific Company. If one of 
voiir associates has such evidence it is right that lie 
should produce it. 

Your fifth charge is that, after Mr. Blaine got posses¬ 
sion of the so-called Mulligan letters, “he subsequently 
read such of them as he pleased to the House in aid of 
his vindication.” The answer is that Mulligan’s memo¬ 
randum of the letters in which he had numbered and 


292 


APPEAWIX. 


indexed each one of them was produced, and number 
and index corresponded exactly with the letters read. 
This was fully demonstrated on the floor of the House 
and is a part of its records. 

You repeat the charge that Mr. Blaine received a cer¬ 
tain sum from the Union Pacific Railroad Company for 
seventy-five bonds of the Little Rock road. You say 
this without a particle of proof. You say it against 
the sworn denialyof Thomas A. Scott, who was the party 
alleged to have made the negotiation. You say it 
against the written denial of Mr. Sidney Dillon, presi¬ 
dent of the company ; against the written denial of E. 
H. Rollins, treasurer of the company ; against the writ¬ 
ten denial of Morton, Bliss & Co., through whose bank¬ 
ing-house the transaction was said to have been made. 
Against this mountain of direct and positive testimony 
from every one who could by any possibility have per¬ 
sonal knowledge of the alleged transaction, you op¬ 
pose nothing but hearsay and suspicion as the ground 
of a serious charge against the character of a man long 
eminent in public life. The courtesy which admits 
me to your columns prevents my saying what I think of 
your recklessness in this matter. 

Your fifth charge against Mr. Blaine’s policy as an ex¬ 
ecutive officer, and your last charge, is that of his pack¬ 
ing conventions in his own favor. I do not desire to 
dwell upon either. This is not the place to review his 
foreign policy, to which you refer, and I am content to 
remark that, however much some Eastern journals may 


APPRArnjw 


2#6 


criticise it, it is popular with a large majority of the 
American people. It is simply an American policv, 
looking to the extension of our commerce among the 
nations of this continent, and steadily refraining from 
European complications of every character. 

The charge of packing conventions needs no answer 
This is the third presidential campaign in which Mr. 
Blaine has been the choice of a large proportion of the 
Republican party. In each of them he has had the act¬ 
ive opposition of the National Administration, with the 
use of its patronage against him. Whatever promi¬ 
nence he has enjoyed has been conferred by the people. 
He has no means not open to every citizen of influenc¬ 
ing the public mind. No campaign in his favor origi¬ 
nated elsewhere than among the people. He never 
sought office. He never held a position to which he 
was not nominated by the unanimous voice of his party. 
He h as not sought the Presidency. Circumstances 
made him a candidate in 1876, almost before he was 
aware of it. In 1880 he did not wish to enter the canvass, 
I was one of a small party of intimate friends who, at a 
long conference in February, 1880, persuaded him that it 
was his duty. Pie has done nothing to make himself a 
candidate this year. He has asked no man’s support. 
He has written no letters, held no conversation, taken 
no steps looking to his candidacy. He has never said 
to his most intimate friends that he expected or desired 
the nomination. 

If, upon a review of the whole case, you should 


2#4 


APPENDIX. 


charg-e that it would have been better and wiser for Mr. 
Blaine to have refrained from making any iiiv’estment 
in a railroad that had directly or indirectly received aid 
from the legislation of Congress, I should be ready to 
agree with you, not because the. thing was necessarily 
wrong in itself, but because it is easy for such matters to 
be so represented as to appear wrong. But why should 
Mr. Blaine be selected for special reprobation and criti¬ 
cism when so many other Senators and Representatives 
have been similarly situated. I know of my own knowl¬ 
edge that Governor Morgan, Mr. Samuel blooper. Sen¬ 
ator Grimes, and many of my friends while in Congress 
acquired and held interests in such enterprises, and 
neither you nor I, nor the people, suspected it to be 
wrong, or that it gave them any advantage over the in¬ 
vestors. Why entertain and publish that suspicion 
against Mr. Blaine alone? When I sat as a Delegate at 
Large in the last National Convention, Senator Edmunds 
and Senator Windom were both candidates for the 
Presidency, and I should gladly have supported either. 
Senator Edmunds was understood to have a block of 
Burlington & Missouri securities, and Senator Win- 
dom had not only a block in the securities of the North¬ 
ern Pacific Company, but was also one of its directors. 
Yet you find no fault witli these gentlemen. Nor would 
you and I differ in giving the highest rank to Sen¬ 
ator Grimes ; but both he and Senator Edmunds ac¬ 
quired their interests in the Burlington & Missouri 
road, when they were in the Senate. They both sup- 


APPENDIX. 


295 


ported the bill to restore the land grant to their road. It 
was passed on the same day with the Little Rock bill. 
Roth measures were just, and both were passed in the 
House and Senate without a dissenting vote. Why 
must we suspect that Mr. Blaine had a secret and cor¬ 
rupt motive, and that other members and senators had 
none ? 

Let me add a circumstance which seems to me to be 
not only significant but conclusive of Mr. Blaine’s con¬ 
scious innocence in this Fort Smith transaction^ He 
voluntarily made himself a party of record in a suit 
against the Fort Smith & Little Rock Railway Com¬ 
pany in the United States Circuit Court, which involved 
the nature and sources of his ownership in the property. 
This was before he was named for the Presidency. If 
he had obtained this ownership dishonorably would he 
have courted this publicity ? 

I have thus ventured, Mr. Editor, to make answer to 
the charges yoti have brought against Mr. Blaine. 
There are other charges equally baseless which I have 
read, but in other papers, so that I may not claim your 
space to deny or answer them. I give two examples. 
Mr. Blaine is represented as the possessor of millions, 
while I personally know that he was never the posses¬ 
sor of tlie half of one million. He was represented as 
living for the past ten years in palatial grandeur in 
Wasiiington. He sold that palatial mansion, with all its 
furniture, to Mr. Stevens, for ^§24,500, and got all that 
it was worth. But you are responsible only for sucli 


296 


APPENDIX. 


charges as you have made, and I have, therefore, made 
answer to them authoritatively over my own name, and 
I challenge denial of any substantial fact I have stated. 
Your attacks are not on Mr. Blaine alone—thev are on 
his friends as well, and these are certainly a larger and 
more devoted body of supporters than can be claimed 
by any other man in public life. It seems to me, as I 
recall those in every station who are proud to be num¬ 
bered among them, that I recognize many of the ablest, 
truest, and most honorable of our countrymen. 

William Walter Phelps. 

Washington, April 23, 1884. 





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- Whitehall Review. 

ARDEN. By A. Mary F. Robi 
Library, No. 134, 15 cents. 

“Miss Robinson must certainly be 
congratulated on having scored a suc¬ 
cess at the very beginning of her ca¬ 
reer. ‘Arden’ is an extremely clever 
story, and though it is one merely of 
every-day life, yet the incidents are so 
clothed as to appear fresh and new, 
and the scent of the hay throughout 
is invigorating and refreshing. The 
heroine, who gives her name to the 
book, is a wild, impulsive creature 
whom one cannot help liking, in spite 
of various weaknesses in her char- 

NSONc 1 vui., 12mo., ill Lovell's 

acter. Brought up in Rome, on the 
death of her father, Arden returns to 
his native village in Warwickshire, 
there to make acquaintance with the 
truest and freshest country people we 
have ever met on paper. The story 
is simply that of Arden s life and 
marriage, but it is never wearisome 
because of the sharpness of- the writ¬ 
ing, and we have to thank Miss Robin¬ 
son for a very good novel indeed.” — 
Whitehall Review. 


New ¥ork s JOHN W, LOVELL. CJOMPANV, 































LOVELL’S LIBRARY ADVERTISER. 


RECENTLY PUBLISHED: 

UNDERGROUND RUSSIA: 

Revolutionary Profiles and Sketches from Life. 

By STEPNIAK, formerly Editor of “Zemlia i Volia” (Lund and 
Liberty). With a Preface by PETER LAVROFF. Translated 
from the Italian. 1 vol. 13mo., paper cover, Lovell’s Ldwary, 
No. 173 price 20 cents. 

“The book is as yet unique in literature; it is a priceless contribution to 
our knowledge of Russian thought and feeling; as a true and faithful rcilection 
of certain a-^pects of, perhaps, the most tremendous politiciul movemciit la 
history, it seems destined to become a standard work.”— Athenaeum. 


An Outline of the History of Ireland, 

From the Earliest Times to the present day. 

By JUSTIN n. McCarthy, l vol. 12rao., Loved’s Libraiy 
No. 115, price 10 cents 

“A timely and exceedingly vigorous and interesting little volume The hook 
is worthy of attentive perusal, and will be all the more interesting because it 
involves in its production the warm sympathies, the passionate enthusiasm, and 
the vivid brilliancy of style which one is glad to welcome from the sou of the 
distinguished journalist and author —Christian World 

‘ All Irishmen who love their country and all candid Englishmen, ought to 
welcome Mr Justin II. McCarthy slitile volume—An Outline of Irish History 
Those who want to know how it has come about that, us John Stuart Mill long 
ago pointed out. all cries for the remedy of specific Iri.sh grievances are now 
merged in the dangerous demand for nationality, will do well to read Mr 
McCarthy s little book. It is eloquently written, and carries us from the earliest 
legends to the autumn of 1882. The charm of the style and the finpetuousness 
in the flow of the narrative are refreshing and stimulating, and, as r^jgards his 
tone impartiality, Mr McCarthy is far more just than is Mr.Froude. ’—CuAPnic. 
“A brightly written and intelligent account of the leading events in Irish 

annals.Mr, McCarthy has performed a difficult task with commendable 

good spirit and impartiality ’ —Whitehall Review 

‘To those who enjoy exceptionally brilliant and vigorous writing, ns wen 
as to those who desire to post themselves up in the Irish question, we cordially 
recommend Mr McCarthy s little book.' —Evening Kews. 


ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS. 


Edited by JOHN MORLEY. 

Published in 12rao. vols., paper covers, price 10 cents each. 


Johnson. By Leslie Stephen. 

Scott. By R II Hutton. 

Gibbon. By J C. Alorison. 

Shelley. ByJ A. Symonds. 

Huoib. By Prof- Huxley. P R.S 
Goldsmith. By William Black. 
Hefoe. By W. Minto 
Bl'kns. By Principal Shairp 
Spenser. By the V'ery Rev the Dean 
of St Paul s 


Thackeray By A Trollope. 
Burke By John Money 
Bunyan ByJ A Froude, 

Pope By Leslie Stephen. 

Byron By Pro^esbor Nichol. 
CowPER. By Goldwiu Smith 
Locke. By Profes.sor Fowler. 
Wordsworth BvF.W II Myers 
Milton By Mark Pattison 
Southey By Professor Dowdeu. 
Chaucer. By Prof. A. W Ward 


Now York: JOHN \V. LOVF.LL, CO.^IPANY 























LOVELL’S LIBRARY ADVERTISER. 


A 



Or, A LESSON TO FATHERS. 

By F. ANSTEY. 

1 vol., 12mo., cloth gilt, $1.00; 1 vol., 12mo., paper, 50 cents; also in Lovell’s • 

Library No. 30, 20 cents. 

EXTRACTS FROM NOTICES BY THE PRESS. 

THE SATURDAY REVIEW —If there ever was a book made np from 
beginning to end o( laughter, yet not a comic book, or a Tnerry' book, or a 
book of jokes, or a book of pictures, or a jest book, or a tomfool book, but a 
perfectly sober and serious book, in the reading of which a sober man may 
laugh without shame from beginning to end, it is the book called Vice 
Versa; or, a Lesson to Fathers.’ ..We close the book, recommending'it 
very earnestly to all fathers, in the first instance, and their sons, nephews, 
uncles, and male cousins next.” j , 

THE PALL MALL GAZETTE.—Vice Versa' is one of the most 
diverting books that we have read for many a day. It is equally calculated to 
amuse the August idler, and to keep up the spirits of those who stay in town 
and work, while others are holiday making. .. .The book i.s singularly well 
written, graphic, terse, and full of nerve. The school boy conversations are 
to the life, and every scene is brisk and well considered. ’ 

THE ATHENHiiUM.—” The whole story is told with delightful drollery 
and spirit, and there is not a dull page iu the volume. It should be added that 
Mr.Austey writes well, and iu a style admirably suited to his amusing subject ' 

THE SPECTATOR.—” Mr. Anstey deserves the thanks of everybody for 
showing that there is still a little fun left m this world ..It is long since we 

read anything more truly humorous. We must admit that we have not 

laughed so heartily over anything for some years back as we have over this 
‘ Lesson for Fathers.’ ” ^ 

THE ACADEMY.—” It is certainly the beet book of its kind that has ap¬ 
peared for a long time, and in the way of provoking laughter by certain old- i 
fashioned means, which do not involve satire or sarcasm, it has few rivals.” ] 

THE WORLD.—” The idea of a father and son exchanging their identity , 
has suggested itself to many minds before now. It is illustrated in this book \ 
with surprising freshness, originalit and force .... The book is more than 
wildly comic and amusing; it is in parts exceedingly pathetic ” i 

THE COURT JOURNAL.—” The story is told with so much wit ana 
gayety that we cannot be deceived in our impression of tlie future career of F • 
Anstey being destined to attain the greatest success among the most popular 
authors of the day.” 

VrVNITY FAIRThe book is, in our opinion, the drollest work ever 
written in the English language 

TRUTH.—” Mr. Anstey has done an exceedingly difficult thing so admira¬ 
bly and artfully as to conceal its difficulties. Haven’t for years read so irresist¬ 
ibly humorous a book.” 


NEW YORK 

JOHN W. LOVELL CO., 14 and 16 Vesey Street. 

























I 


LOVELL’S LIBRARY ADVERTISER. 


I^E GENTLY PUBLISHER. 

False , Hopes: 

OR, 

FALLACIES, SOCIALISTIC AND SEMI-SOCIALISTIC, 

BRIEFLY ANSWERED. 


An Address, by Prof. GOLDWIW SMITH, D.C.L. 


No. 110, Lovell’s Library.15 cents 

‘‘ This is the title of a pamphlet in which Mr. Goldv/in Smith dissects and 
lays bare, in the most imimpassioned way, but with the kceuesl; of literary 
scalpels, the fallacies involved in communism, socialism, nationalization of 
laud, strike'!, the various plans in vogue for emancipating labor from the 
dominion of capital. Protection, and some theories of innovation with regard to 
Currency and Banking. The great number and prevalence of these diseases of 
the body politic are, he thinks, mainly due to the de-tiarturo or decline of re¬ 
ligious faith, which is so noticeable a feature of the present age; to popular 
aducation, which has gone far enough to make the masses think, but not think 
deeply ; to the (»stentation of the vulgar rich, who ‘ deserve, fully as much as 
the revolutionary artisans, the name of a dangerous class;’ to the democratic 
movement of the times ; and, to the revolution in science, which ‘has helped 
to excite the spirit of change in every sphere, little as Utopianism is akin to 
science .’”—Tovonto Globe. 


MR. SCARBOROUGH’S FAMILY 

By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. 

vol.,12mo., cloth, gilt.81-02 

1 “ “ paper.oO 

Also in Lovell’s Library, No.'i:i3, 2 parts, each.15 

“ In ‘ Mr. Scarboronch’s Family’there is abundance of ‘go,’ there are 
many strlkin" scenes, and there is one character at least which is original 
almost to incredibility. There are light sketches of social life, one or two of 
them nearly in the author’s best manner, and many ch.apters which are ex¬ 
tremely cutortaininj. The story is so life-like and so extremely readable, that 
wo lay it down \mh a pleasure largely leavened with regret.”—rtf ay 
Rcvtcxo 

“‘Mr. Scarborough’s Family ’ is a very enjoyable novel. Mr. Trollope has 
never given us two stronger or less comimmplace characters than that terrible 
ol I pa^au Joiin Scarborough, and his attorney. Grey, whom we agree with his 
emploL'r in describing as‘ the sweetest and finest gentleman ’ we ever came 

^‘^‘^‘^^'^.'j^fJI'^^Scartiorough’s Family recalls all those features in Mr. Trollope’s 
Looks w hich have made them the pleasure and instruction of generations of 
novel readers He is in his old vein, and he has a story to tell that is inlinitely 
ftinusim' Mr. Scarborough is a wonderful study. There is, indeed, no char¬ 
acter i Vtbe book that has not been carefully thought out. There is a deligbt- 
fnl f-e^hness about Florence Mountjoy. She is a fiank, outspoken dam.-^el. 
who V-‘mind is as be.illhy ns her body. It is needless to say that the talk 
throughout the book is good. The novel as a whole, indeed, is one that will 
malve'r iulers regret more bitterly than ever that he who wrote it has gone from 
mnoiiL-’t us.”—>S'ct>fwian. 

JOIiri W. LOVELL CO., 14 & 16 Vesey St., N. Y. 
























HEALTH and ViCOR 


FOR THE BRAIN AND NERVES. 


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CROSBY’S VITALIZED FHOS-PHITES. ’ 

This is a standard preparation with all physicians who treat 
nerYons and mental disorders. 

Grosby^s Vitalized jPhos-phites should he taken as a Special 
Brain Pood. 

To BUILD UP worn-out nerves, to banish sleeplessness, neu¬ 
ralgia and sich headache.— Dr. Gwynn. 

To PROMOTE ,good digestion.— I)r, Filmore. 

To “stamp out ”consumption.— Dr. Churchill. 

To “ coMPLETLY cure night sweats.”— John B. Quigley. 

To MAINTAIN the capabilities of the brain and nerves to per¬ 
form all functions even at the highest tension.— E. L. Kellogg. 

To RESTORE the. energy lost by nervousness, debility, over- 
exertion or enervated vital powers.— Dr. W. 8. Wells. 

To REPAIR the nerves that have been enfeebled by worry, de¬ 
pression, anxiety or deep grief.— Miss Ma/ry BanMn. 

To STRENGTHEN the intellect so that study and deep mental 
application may be a pleasure and not a trial.— B. M. Couch. 

To DEVELOP good teeth, glossy hair, clear skin, handsome nails 
in the young, so that they may lie an inheritance in later years.— 
Editor School Journal. 

'J’o ENLARGE the Capabilities for enjoyment.— National Journal 
of Edueatwn. 

To “ MAKS life a pleasure,” “not a daily suffering.” “I 
really urge you to put it to the test."— Miss Emily Faithfull. 

To AMPLIFY bodily and mental power to the present genera¬ 
tion and “prove the survival of the fittest ” to the next.— Bismarck. 

There is no other Vital Phos-phite, none that is extracted 
from living animal and vegetable tissues.— Dr. Gaspci*. 

To restore lost powers and abilities.—-D?*. Bull. 

For sale by druggists or mail, $1. 

F. CROSBY CO., No. 56 West Twenty-fifth St., New York. 


;;r. 















LOVELL’S LIBRARY—CATALOGUE. 


186. 


187. 

188. 

189. 


190. 

191. 

192. 
‘ 93 - 


194. 

195. 


196. 

197. 

198. 

199. 


202. 


103. 

204. 

205. 

206. 

207. 


208. 

209. 


211. 


185. M^’sterious Island, Pt II. 15 
Mysterious Island.Ptll I.15 
Tom Brown at Oxford, 

2 Parts, each.15 

Thicker than Water....20 

In Silk Attire.20 

Scottish Chiefs, Part I.. 20 
Scottish Chiefs, Part 11 .20 

Willy Reilly......20 

The Nautz Family.20 

Great Expectations.20 

Hist.of Pendennis,Pt I..20 
Hist.of Pendennis,Pt II 20 
Widow Bedott Papers ..20 
Daniel Deronda,Part I..20 
Daniel Deronda, Part 11 .20 

Altiora Peto.20 

By the Gate of the Sea. .15 

Tales of a Traveller.20 

Life and Voyages of Co¬ 
lumbus, 2 Parts, each. 20 

200. The Pilgrim’s Progress..20 

201. MartinChuzzlewit,P’rt 1 .20 
MartinChuzzlewitjP’t II.20 

Theophrastus Such.10 

Disarmed.15 

Eugene Aram.20 

The Spanish Gypsy, &C.20 

Cast up by the Sea.20 

Mill on the Floss, Part 1 .15 
Mill on the Floss, P’t II. 15 

Brother Jacob, etc.10 

The Executor.20 

210. American Notes.15 

The Newcomes, Part I..20 
The Newcomes, Part II.20 

The Privateersman.20 

The Three Feathers... .20 

I 'itom Fortune.20 

e Red Eric.20 

x.ady Silverdale’s Sweet¬ 
heart.;.10 

The Four Macnicol’s ... 10 
2 i8.Mr.PisistratusBrown,M.P.io 
219. Dombeyand Son,Part I.20 
Dombey and Son,Part 11 .20 

Book of Snobs.10 

Fairy Tales, Illustrated. .20 

The Disowned.20 

Little Dorrit, Part 1 .20 

Little Dorrit, Part II... .20 
Abbotsford and New- 

stead Abbey.10 

Oliver Goldsmith, Black 10 

The Fire Brigade.20 

Rifle and Hound in Cey¬ 
lon .A.20 

OurMutualFriend.P’t 1 .20 
OurMutualFriend,I”t 11 .20 

Paris Sketches.15 

Belinda.20 

Nicholas Nickleby,P’t 1 .20 
NicholasNickleby,P’t 1 1.20 
Monarch of Mincing 

Dane.20 

Eight Years’ Wanderings 

in Ceylon.20 

Pictures from Italy.15 

5. Adventures of Philip,Pt 1 .15 
I Adventures of Philip, Pt 11 .15 
■36. Knickerbocker History 
I oi New York.20 


212. 

213. 

214. 
2 1'. 


« 7 * 


220. 

22 I. 
'. 22 . 


:23. 


24. 


127. 


828 . 


* 32 - 


233 - 


* 34 - 


237 - 

238. 


239 ' 

240. 

241. 

242. 

243. 

244. 


245 ' 


246. 

247. 

248. 


249. 

250, 


251, 


252, 

253 

254. 

255 


256, 

257, 

258 

259 


260. 

261. 


262. 

263. 

264. 

265. 

266. 

267. 

268. 


269. 


270. 

271. 

272. 

273- 

274. 

275 - 

276. 

277 - 

278. 

279. 

280. 

281. 

282. 

283. 

284. 

285. 


286. 

287. 
2S8. 

289. 

290. 

291. 

292. 
293 * 

294. 

295 . 

296. 

297. 


The Boy at Mugby.. 

The Virginians, Part I..20 
The Virginians, Part 11 .20 

Erling the Bold.20 

Kenelm Chillingly.20 

Deep Down.20 

Samuel Brohl & Co... . .20 

Gautran.20 

Bleak House, Part I.... 20 
Bleak House, Part 11 ...20 
What Will He Do With 

It? 2 Parts,each...20 

SketchesofYoungCouples. to 

Devereux.20 

Life of Webster, Part 1 .15 
Life of Webster, Pt. II. 15 

The Crayon Papers.20 

The Caxtons, Part I.... 15 
The Caxtons, Part II... 15 
Autobiography of An¬ 
thony Trollope.20 

Critical Reviews, etc.... 10 

Lucretia.20 

Peter the Whaler.20 

Last of the Barons. Pt 1 .15 
Last of the Barons,Pt.II. 15 

Eastern Sketches.15 

Alhfc a Garden Fair... .20 

Fim No. 113.20 

The Parisians, Part I...20 
The Parisians, Part 11 .. 20 
Mrs. Darling’s Letters.. .20 
Master Humphrey’s 

Clock.10 

Fatal Boots, etc.10 

The Alhambra.15 

The Four Georges.10 

Plutarch’s Lives, 5 Pts. §1. 
Under the Red Flag.... 10 
TheHaunted House, etc. 10 
When the Ship Comes 

Home. 10 

One False, both Fair....20 
The Mudfog Papers, etc. 10 
My Novel, 3 Parts, each.20 
Conquest of Granada. ..20 

Sketches by Boz.20 

A Christmas Carol, etc.. 15 

lone Stewart.20 

Harold, 2 Parts, each... 15 

Dora Thorne.20 

Maid of Athens...20 

Conquest of Spain.10 

Fitzboodle Papers, etc.. 10 

Bracebridge Hall.20 

Uncommercial Traveller.20 

Roundabout Papers.20 

Rossmoyne. .20 

A Legend of the Rhine, 

etc.10 

Cox’s Diary, etc.10 

Beyond Pardon.20 

Somebody’s Luggage,etc. 10 

Godolphin...20 

Salmagundi.20 

Famous Funny Fellows.20 

Irish Sketches, etc.20 

The Battle of Life, etc... 10 
Pilgrims of the Rhine ...15 

Random Shots.20 

Men’s Wives.. .. to 

Mystery of Edwin Drood.ao 


298. Reprinted Pieces.ae 

299. Astoria.....20 

Soo.Novelsby Eminent Handsio 

301. Companions of Columbus2o 

302. No Thoroughfare.. 

303. Character Sketches, etc. 10 

304. Christmas Books.20 

305. A Tour on the Prairies... 10 

306. Ballads.15 

307. Yellowplush Papers.10 

308. Life of Mahomet, Part 1 .15 
Life of Mahomet, Pt. 11 .15 

309. Sketches and Travels in 

# London.10 

310. Oliver Goldsmith,Irving.20 

311. Cantain Bonneville ..'.. 20 

312. Golden Girls.20 

313. English Humorists.15 

314. Moorish Chronicles.10 

315. Winifred Power.20 

316. Great HoggartyDiamond 10 

317. Pausanias. *••••15 

318. The New Abelard.....20 

319. A Real Queen.20 

320. The Rose and the Ring.20 

321. Wolfert’s Roost and Mis- f 

cellanies, by Irving*—10 

322. Mark Seaworth.20 

323. Life of Paul Jones.20 

324. Round the World.20 

325. Elbow Room.20 

326. The Wizard’s Son.25 

327. Harry Lorrequer.20 

328. How It All Came Round.20 

329. Dante Rosetti’s Poems. 20 

330. The Canon’s Ward.20 

331. Lucile, by O. Meredith. 20 

332. Every Day Cook Book.. 20 

333. Lays of Ancient Rome.. 20 

334. Ltfe of Bums.20 

335. The Young Foresters...20 

336. John Bull andHis Island 20 

337. Salt Water, by Kingston. 20 

338. The Midshipman.20 

339. Proctor’s Poems.20 

340. Cla5rton’s Rangers.20 

341. Schiller’s Poems.20 

342. Goethe’s Faust.20 

343. Goethe’s Poems.20 

344. Life of Thackeray.10 

345. Dante’s Vision of Hell, 
Purgatory and Paradise.. 20 

346. An Interesting Case....20 

347. Life of Byron, Nichol... 10 

348. Life of Bunyan.10 

349. Valerie’s Fate.10 

350. GrandfatherLickshingle.2o 

35t. Lays of the Scottish Ca¬ 
valiers.20 

352. Willis’ Poems.20 

353. Tales of the French Re¬ 

volution.15 

354. Loom and Lugger- ..20 

355. More Leaves from a Life 

in the Highlands.15 

356. Hygiene of the Brain. ..25 

357. Berkeley the Banker-20 

35A Homes Abroad.15 

359. Scott’s Lady of the Lake, 

with notes.. 

360. Modem Christianity a 
civilized Heathenism.... 15 





















































































































THE CELEBRATED 



Grand, Square and Upright 



PIANOFORTES. 


The demands now made by an educated musical public are so exacting that very few 
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Received First Prize Centennial Exhibition Philadelphia, 1876. 
Received First Prize at Exhibition, Montreal, Canada, 1881 & 1882. 

SOHMER & CO., Manufacturers, 

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